Mini-Med mania continues

McGill's crash courses in medicine back by popular demand and sold out

Public thirst for medical knowledge will continue to be quenched at McGill. For the second consecutive year, the Faculty of Medicine is offering its wildly popular Mini-Med courses to the general public.

Upcoming Mini-Med sessions will consist of eight crash courses on everything from anatomy to pharmacology. There are no prerequisites for taking Mini-Med courses, which are designed for anyone from 16 to 116 years old, and participants don't need to take exams or complete homework. Last year, Mini-Med's 300 precious spots sold out within days and 400 people were placed on a waiting list. About 300 people from that patient lot will finally experience Mini-Med when the second round of courses begin on Oct. 16. All reporters are welcome to attend by calling 514-398-6752.

About 160 people have been added to a new waiting list and McGill's Mini-Med contagion is spreading. Although McGill was the first Canadian university to offer Mini-Med, the University of Toronto has followed suit by launching a Mini-Med program this fall and the University of British Columbia plans to do the same next year.

McGill's Faculty of Medicine is budgeting $35,000 to offer Mini-Med sessions to the general public as an outreach effort. Participants are charged a nominal fee to enrol: $50 for adults and $25 for student and seniors. Abraham Fuks, McGill's dean of medicine, says giving the general public an opportunity to learn more about medicine is a way for McGill to give back to the community. "The Mini-Med program is an exciting way to bring people to McGill, especially young people, who might not otherwise have come," he says. "This program allows them to learn what we're all about."

Fuks adds that Mini-Med provides faculty with a unique challenge - to teach complicated material in lay terms. "By preparing the background for lectures, having to use simpler words, having to answer questions, we begin to understand the material more clearly ourselves and that makes us better professors," says Fuks, who will be teaching his second Mini-Med session this fall.

The complete Mini-Med schedule is as follows:

• Oct. 16: Anatomy: "Exploring the Incredible Human," by Dr. Dennis Osmond
• Oct. 23: Physiology: "Keeping Our Bodies In Balance," by Dr. Sarah Prichard
• Oct. 30: Immunology: "Safe Inside Your Skin," by Dr. Phil Gold
• Nov. 6: Microbiology: "Bugs 'R Us," by Dr. Brian Ward
• Nov. 13:Neuroscience: "The Search For The Soul," by Dr. Rolando Del Maestro
• Nov. 20: Pathology: "The Tissue Is The Issue," by Dr. Carolyn Compton
• Nov. 27: Pharmacology: "Decoding Disease, Designing Therapy," by Dr. Chaim Shustik
• Dec. 4: The Human Genome: "The Enigma Variations," by Dr. Abraham Fuks

The Mini-Med concept was developed 12 years ago by McGill alumnus Dr. John Cohen and is now available at some 75 teaching institutions across the U.S. and Europe. For more information, please consult www.medicine.mcgill.ca/minimed.