DC SPOTLIGHT EDUCATION MOVING UP Dr. David Wickes heads north from Connecticut to Canada to take the helm at the country’s most prominent chiropractic school BY MARI-LEN DE GUZMAN W hen Dr. Jean Moss an -nounced last year she is ending her 24-year ser-vice as presi-dent of the Canadian Memorial Chi-ropractic College, the next several months were spent searching for the best, qualified executive to fill some pretty big shoes. Last May, the school announced the appointment of Dr. David Wickes, then dean of the Col-lege of Chiropractic at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, as its new president. Canadian Chiropractor magazine got an opportunity to speak with Wickes and get a sense of the man who will sit at the helm of the institution that plays a big part in shaping the future of the chiropractic profession in Canada. Following are excerpts from the inter-view. What are your expectations coming into this role? David Wickes (DW): My expectations are that we will have a very collaborative working environment between the gov-erning board, the administration, me as the president, the faculty, the students, the alumni and the Canadian profes-sion. I think we will have a wonderful time getting to know each other and working very closely together. What will the first 100 days in your new role look like? DW: The first 100 days will primarily be spent building relationships, learning about the people at CMCC, learning the operations, going into details on the existing strategic plans, getting to know the sense of values of the employees and the students, getting to know the key people throughout the Canadian pro-fession, learning, interacting with and developing relationships with provincial leaders, the association leaders, people in the federation. Is there a specific agenda that you would like to focus on as the new president? DW: As the new president the first thing I have to do is really spend time with the governing board and get as much better handle on the strategic planning that had gone on at CMCC and what they envision for the near future. It’s too early in my role for me to say, ‘Here’s what I really want to do.’ I think it’s because it would be unwise as the new leader of an established institution that has been running well and has had an experience – Dr. Moss has done a wonderful job – it would be unwise for a new president to come in and make sweeping changes. Right now I am in a wait-and-see type of mode. I have to spend some time with the governing board. The best I can say right now is that the portions of the stra-tegic plan that has been shared with me up to this point, I’m in agreement with, Dr. David Wickes and that is to continue to look for collab-oration opportunities for us to develop additional articulation agreements with other institutions, for collaborative learn-ing experiences. So I will continue to push toward those things and those are the types of things I have been comfort-able doing in my past roles. As an educator, administrator and doctor of chiropractic, what are your thoughts on the state of the profession as an integrated part of the overall health-care system? DW: For the chiropractic profession to continue into the future as a major part of the health-care team in Canada, we have to continue to push for establishing our expertise in the public perspective. We have to continue to push for devel-oping interprofessional relationships that bear fruit. There has been a tremendous amount of work that has been done across Canada to work on that regard. As an example, the work that has been done www.canadianchiropractor.ca MARI-LEN DE GUZMAN is the editor of Canadian Chiropractor and Massage Therapy Canada magazine. She can be contacted at [email protected]. 36 Canadian Chiropractor July/August 2014 Photo: CMCC
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