The world has changed dramatically in the past two weeks.

I never would have imagined a time where 90% of our workforce is working remotely; a time where you only leave home to get essentials like groceries, or a time where the only way to see loved ones is through a computer screen. And yet in a very short time, we have reached this place, and come to accept it as our new - albeit temporary - normal.

As I reflect back on the last 10 years as dean of this remarkable faculty and school of medicine, without a doubt, some of my fondest memories will be our student dinners. Back in 2010, as I was preparing to become the “new dean at Queen’s” my wife Cheryl asked me a simple, yet profound question.

Six years ago, when Dr. Fabio Ynoe de Moraes was a resident in radiation oncology in São Paulo, he began to ask questions about cancer patients’ access to radiation in Brazil. How many LINAC systems (linear accelerator radiation machines) were there in the country? Where were they?

I promised myself never to think about the end of my deanship, but the events of the last few weeks have made me break my promise. Just as we passed the new year, I became increasingly conscious of the fact that this truly is the last lap of what has been a privilege for the last nine and half years.

If you have been following my blog for the last year, you may be aware that in 2018, it was brought to light that the Queen’s School of Medicine (then Faculty of Medicine) banned Black students in 1918. And while the ban had not been enforced since 1965, it remained on the University’s books as an official policy. So in October 2018, the Queen’s University Senate formally repealed the ban on black medical students. But I knew that we needed to do more.

Since the beginning of her career as a physician, Susan Bartels has felt a pull toward social justice, and to addressing the broader issues of health care inequity around the world.

It’s no surprise, then, that her latest research into the impact of the long-standing UN peacekeeping presence in Haiti follows that same trajectory.