Blogger: Stig A. Slørdahl
Dean at The Faculty og Medicine, NTNU

Last week, the four medical faculties organised a leadership summer school. This was a pilot project to explore whether it can work as a supplement to the teaching we provide for all our students. It was also an experiment to determine the content of a possible summer school.

The summer school took place at the Inter University Centre (IUC) in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The IUC is an international study centre, and an independent institution with 167 member universities in 46 countries. All the Norwegian universities with medical faculties are members.

IUC has the facilities to organise international conferences, but also to organise smaller events like our summer school. It can also provide accommodation for 56 people, and additional rooms can be rented in the nearby monastery. Several Norwegian professors from the universities in Oslo and Bergen hold leading positions in the organisation.

I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in the last part of the summer school, as a representative for the Deans at the four medical faculties. It was very useful to meet the students and lecturers to help me form an opinion on whether we should continue developing this concept. This year, 18 medical students from Oslo, Bergen, Tromsø and Trondheim participated, and the lecturers came from all four faculties and health regions.

Professor Tor Ingebrigtsen, general manager at the University Hospital in Northern Norway / The Arctic University of Norway (UiT), was the course leader. The four faculties had developed the programme’s content together. Several teaching elements stemmed from the education given to top health care leaders. A significant part of the teaching was also based on relevant “cases” from the lecturers’ daily jobs.

The participating students were this autumn’s fifth and sixth year students, who during their studies have already had different leadership tasks in student organisations and as student representatives, among other things. Many of them also have an extensive academic background from previous studies and various stays abroad. I think many of them could already envision possible careers as health leaders.

The feedback from students and lecturers was very positive. Students and lecturers spending entire days together provides a fruitful learning environment, especially as the lecturers attend each other’s lectures to give comments and feedback.

It is also important to give leadership a bigger role in the education of future doctors, which is why the educational elements concerning leadership have increased in recent years. The University of Oslo has, among other things, developed the subject KLoK (Knowledge management, leadership and quality improvement) with the intention of letting the students acquire “knowledge, skills and competence in knowledge based practice, leadership and quality improvement, enabling you to exercise the medical profession in a professional way, as a specialist and as a participant in multidisciplinary groups and teams”.

I do not believe that there is an incompatibility between an increased emphasis on leadership in basic courses and a summer school for those who are particularly interested. The health services need to recruit a large number of leaders in the years to come, and to spark leadership interest, competence and perspective in the early stages of the education can prove to be important to make more doctors view leadership as an attractive and important career.

What remains is of course to evaluate whether this is a programme that should continue, and which changes it might benefit from. The first decision to be made is whether we should include students from other health related studies, and whether the programme should be made international.

I am looking forward to reading the evaluations and continuing the discussion about the continued existence of the summer school and possible changes to the programme. I am confident that we can develop the concept if all the faculties agree to pursue it. A positive side effect is that collective programmes like this promote closer relationships between students and employees across faculties. This results in useful contributions regarding how we conduct our basic educations.

This blog post was published in Norwegian at forskning.no 22.08.2014

Fred Kavli, a businessman, entrepreneur and philanthropist whose support for basic scientific research has had a major impact on the research landscape in three continents, has died at 86.

Kavli died peacefully in his home in Santa Barbara on Thursday November 21, according to the Kavli Foundation, the institution he founded in 2000 to support his philanthropic work.

– Fred Kavli was an extraordinary human being with special visionary qualities. We are proud to represent his alma mater, and happy that we can carry his vision forward through the work of the Kavli Institute, said Gunnar Bovim, Rector of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.

Kavli at NTNU, 2007. Photo: Steinar Fugelsøy, Adresseavisen/NTNU Info

Kavli graduated with a degree in applied physics in 1955 from the Norwegian Institute of Technology, one of NTNU’s predecessors.  His philanthropic work through the Kavli Foundation has had a substantial impact on NTNU, particularly when the university’s Centre for the Biology of Memory was selected in 2007 to be the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience.

– Fred has had an enormous impact on our lives. It is because of his vision that we have been able to conduct science as we wanted to do, and it is because of Fred that the institute has grown and become so successful, said Edvard Moser, director of NTNU’s Kavli Institute. – Fred’s beliefs in long-term investments and the power of basic science were unmatched. We will do our best to carry on his vision. He has established a secure foundation for that, through the establishment of the institute as well as the enormous support we get through the Foundation. The support of the Foundation serves as a model for other philanthropic organizations.

– It was with great sadness that we received the news that Fred had passed away, said Stig Slørdahl, dean of the university’s Faculty of Medicine. – Fred was a man with great vision, and even greater generosity, wisdom, creativity and a deep inner drive.

Kavli was diagnosed with cancer, about a year ago. He is survived by two children, and nine nephews and nieces.

After receiving his degree from NTH in 1955, Kavli moved to Canada and eventually the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen and established the Kavlico Corporation in Los Angeles in 1958. The company eventually became one of the world’s largest suppliers of sensors for aeronautical, automotive and industrial applications. The company’s products are found in such landmark projects as the SR-71 Blackbird and the Space Shuttle.

Kavli established the Kavli Foundation in 2000 after divesting his interests in Kavlico. Based in Southern California, the Foundation today includes an international community of basic research institutes in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, neuroscience, and theoretical physics.

The Foundation has also established and supported an international program of conferences, symposia, endowed professorships, and other activities. This includes being a founding partner of the biennial Kavli Prizes, which recognize scientists for their seminal advances in three research areas: astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience.

Kavli was awarded an honorary doctorate from NTNU in 2008.

Mr. Børge Brende, the Minister of Foreign Affairs together with May-Britt Moser, Edvard Moser and the Dean at the The Faculty of Medicine, NTNU, Stig Slørdahl.

Mr. Børge Brende, the Minister of Foreign Affairs visited NTNU yesterday. After a meeting with the Rector, the minister gave an inspiring talk to staff and students about geopolitical changes.

He was then presented with the Medical Faculty’s ideas of how to work with global health, and a tour of the Kavli Institute’s lab.

Guest blogger: Dean Stig Slørdahl

The Faculty of Medicine is launching a new blog, and I welcome you to contribute towards making this an exciting blog – a must-read!

 What would you like to read about on the blog?