CBMC Leadership Appointments

David C. Dingwall, President of Cape Breton University, and Dr. David Anderson, Dean of the Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine are pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Jennifer Hall and Dr. Arlene Kelly-Wiggins to leadership positions of the Cape Breton Medical Campus. These appointments signal an important milestone in the development of the campus which will begin its inaugural class of 30 students in August of 2025.  

Dr. Jennifer Hall has been appointed Senior Associate Dean, Cape Breton Medical Campus for a 15-month term. Dr. Arlene Kelly-Wiggins has been appointed Assistant Dean, Pre-Clerkship for the Cape Breton Medical Campus for a five-year term. Both appointments are effective immediately. 

“I’m incredibly excited to be a part of this transformational project to help make the Cape Breton Medical Campus a success and reshape medical education in Nova Scotia,” said Dr. Hall. “A credit to Cape Breton University and Dalhousie University for the tremendous amount of work that has taken place in such a short time to make the medical campus a reality. We now have a real opportunity to further strengthen relationships with local physicians and to provide the best possible medical education experience for our first cohort of students in August 2025.”  

Dr. Hall received her BSC from Dalhousie University and an MSc and MD from Memorial University of Newfoundland. She completed her Family Medicine residency at Memorial University and practiced in Newfoundland until 2002. In that year she moved to New Brunswick where she continued to practice comprehensive family medicine until 2015.  

In 2015, Dr. Hall became the second Associate Dean to lead the Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick campus in Saint John, New Brunswick and has been integral in the overwhelming success of the campus. Her efforts have encompassed the implementation of longitudinal integrated clerkship sites in four New Brunswick communities and the consistent growth in research output of DMNB researchers. She and her team focused on the needs of New Brunswick and made changes at Dalhousie to support the populations which DMNB served.    

Under Dr. Hall’s leadership, DMNB students performed consistently high, matching with their peers at the Dalhousie Medicine Nova Scotia campus, including in the residency-matching process and the Medical Council of Canada qualifying examination. During accreditation of Dalhousie Medical School in 2018 by the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools, it was commented by one of the accreditors that DMNB was likely the most successful distributed medical education campus in the country. The confidence of the Government of New Brunswick in DMNB’s efforts led to a 25 per cent expansion of undergraduate medical seat numbers beginning in the fall of 2022.   

Dr. Hall led the development of a Family Medicine Project Charter in 2018 to enhance the exposure of medical students to the specialty of family medicine and promote family medicine as a career choice for students. Under the guidance of the charter, initiatives were developed to boost exposure to family medicine across the Dalhousie medicine curriculum resulting in more than half last year’s graduating class beginning their residency training in family medicine this summer, marking a significant increase since 2018 when only 25 per cent of the class chose to enter a career path in family medicine.  

A former College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) President (2015-2016), Dr. Hall has been involved in many activities at the CFPC over the years. She is currently Chair of the CFPC Residency Accreditation Committee, which is responsible for setting the specific standards for family medicine residency programs accredited by the CFPC.  

Dr. Hall is an exemplary leader, and we are fortunate to have someone with her expertise and passion to guide this exciting chapter of medical education in Nova Scotia.   

We are also pleased to announce that Dr. Arlene Kelly-Wiggins has been appointed Assistant Dean, Pre-Clerkship for the Cape Breton Medical Campus for a five-year term, effective immediately.  

Dr. Kelly-Wiggins is a native of Glace Bay, and a graduate of CBU/UCCB (BSc program UCCB 1985-7, StFX 1989, and BA in English from UCCB in 1991). Dr. Kelly-Wiggins further pursued a BEd from St. Thomas University in Fredericton in 1994. 

After teaching high school chemistry and science for 12 years in Ottawa and four years in Cape Breton, Dr. Kelly-Wiggins embarked on a medical career, entering the Dalhousie Medicine undergraduate program in 2011 and earning an MD in 2015. Dr. Kelly-Wiggins matched to the Cape Breton site for the Dalhousie Family Medicine program. Dr. Kelly-Wiggins completed the Care of Elderly program at Dalhousie before entering practice in Sydney in 2018. She has since led the revitalization and growth of the geriatrics program at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital to help serve the health needs of seniors in the Cape Breton region.   

As the Assistant Dean, Pre-Clerkship, Dr. Kelly-Wiggins will oversee the delivery of the pre-clerkship curriculum for the undergraduate medical education program for first and second year medical students at the Cape Breton Medical Campus.  Dr. Kelly-Wiggins will work closely with Dr. Hall and in collaboration with the Assistant Deans, Pre-Clerkship at Dalhousie’s campuses based in Halifax (DMNS) and Saint John, New Brunswick (DMNB). Dr. Kelly-Wiggins with have the joint responsibility for the integration, coordination, implementation and quality improvement of the pre-clerkship curriculum at the Cape Breton Medical Campus. 

We also wish to thank and acknowledge the contributions of the Cape Breton Medical Campus planning committee which will continue its work over the next several months – particularly Dr. Kevin Orrell who has acted as interim Senior Associate Dean for the Cape Breton Medical Campus and will continue in his role of Special Advisor to the President of Cape Breton University on matters related to health including aspects of the Cape Breton Medical Campus. 

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Jennifer Hall and Dr. Arlene Kelly-Wiggins to their exciting new roles with the Cape Breton Medical Campus. 

 

Dr. David Anderson
Dean, Faculty of Medicine
Dalhousie University
 

David C. Dingwall
President and Vice-Chancellor
Cape Breton University