In the news

Highlights of UBC media coverage in March 2012

UBC athletics

T-Birds win national titles

The UBC Thunderbirds made headlines in the Globe and Mail, Canadian Press, the Vancouver Sun and the Province this month after winning national championships.

UBC women and men’s swim teams swept the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) championships at the end of February. Swimmers Savannah King and Tommy Gossland won the most valuable athlete awards. The Thunderbirds won their fifth-straight CIS women’s volleyball title and player Lisa Barclay was named the tournament’s most valuable player. Kyla Richey became the third consecutive women’s volleyball player to win the CIS player of the year award in the sport. The women’s basketball team took silver in the CIS championships after winning the Canada West conference title.

Men’s hockey head coach Milan Dragicevic was named the Canada West Coach of the Year. Hash Kanjee, the head coach of the women’s field hockey, announced he was retiring after 19 seasons.

University news

Jewellery by Bill Reid  donated to UBC

Sydney Friedman and his late wife Constance Livingstone-Friedman, founding members of UBC’s Faculty of Medicine, have donated an important collection of early works by Canadian Haida artist Bill Reid to UBC’s Museum of Anthropology.

The works have been installed in MOA’s Bill Reid Rotunda, reported the Globe and Mail, the Vancouver Sun, the Province and the Georgia Straight.

James Cook relic at MOA

A rare ceremonial club, given to Captain James Cook in 1778 from the Nuu-chah-nulth people of Vancouver Island’s west coast, was donated to UBC’s Museum of Anthropology by the Audain Foundation. The club is the last remaining object from Captain Cook’s personal collection, reported the CBC, Globe and Mail, Global, Vancouver Sun and others.

Moving up

According to the 2012 Times Higher Education Reputation Rankings, UBC now ranks 25th among the top 100 universities on the planet. UBC jumped up six spots from last year’s 31st, reported Bloomberg Businessweek, Global, the Huffington Post, the Vancouver Sun, and Maclean’s OnCampus.

UBC RESEARCH

Youngest in class  misdiagnosed with ADHD

The youngest children in a class are more likely to be diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and treated with medication than their older classmates, suggests a new UBC study, reported Time, the Telegraph, CNN, CBS News, the Globe and Mail, CBC’s The National, and many others.

Lead author Richard Morrow and his colleagues found that children born in December were 39 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD and 48 per cent more likely to be taking medication to treat it than children in the same class born in January.

Medically prescribed heroin more effective, less costly than current methadone treatment

The Daily Mail, CBS, Globe and Mail, the Canadian Press, and many other media outlets reported on a UBC study, drawn from the North American Opiate Medication Initiative (NAOMI), that suggests it might be cheaper and more effective to treat heroin addicts with medically-prescribed heroin, known as diacetylmorphine, instead of methadone.

“Our model indicated that diacetylmorphine would decrease societal costs, largely by reducing costs associated with crime, and would increase both the duration and quality of life of treatment recipients,” said  Dr. Aslam Anis, professor at the UBC School of Population and Public Health who led the research.

“The question I get most about heroin-assisted therapy is whether we can afford the increased direct costs of the treatment,” said study co-author  Dr. Martin Schechter, a professor at UBC’s School of Population and Public Health. “What this study shows is that the more appropriate question is whether we can afford not to.”