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The McMaster Medical Student Council (MMSC) is an elected group of students who organize academic and non-academic events to complement the undergraduate medical program. The MMSC serves the needs of medical students within the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine. Through the formation of interest groups, promotion of volunteer opportunities, and funding of research events, the MMSC strives to provide students the opportunity to explore the many aspects of medicine in order to enhance their overall learning experience. Various MMSC committees are tasked with planning and organizing events such as blood drives, memorials, community fundraisers and volunteer opportunities for students, as well as collecting materials for the School of Medicine yearbook and the MMSC newsletter, The Placebo.

The MERIT (McMaster Education Research, Innovation and Theory) Program is an education services program that has served the Faculty of Health Sciences for more than 45 years. MERIT is dedicated to supporting FHS departments and programs in advancing health professions education scholarship.

Initially led by Victor Neufeld, who was the first head of the earliest iteration of MERIT, known as the Program for Education Development (PED), it supported educational innovation in the School of Medicine. Following Neufeld, there were a number of directors, including Brian Haynes and Jennifer Blake. Between 1987 and 1997, Geoff Norman became director and reassumed the role after a short spell of leadership from Jennifer Blake. He renamed it as the Program for Education Research Development (PERD).

In its various iterations it has, on the one hand, supported and initiated numerous innovations in the health science educational programs, and on the other, has an international reputation for educational research and scholarship. In 2012, Norman was replaced by Harold Reiter. The current Assistant Dean, Jonathan Sherbino, took over in 2017 and the program adopted its current name and vision.

William Matthews was born in Saskatchewan in 1912. Moving with his family to California at a young age, he started school in California and stayed there for seven years until his family moved back to Canada. Finishing high school in Calgary in 1932, he found a job as a miner in Sudbury in 1936 while at the same time working with the Worker's Sport Association as an organizer. With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Matthews headed for Spain in June,1937 and joined the International Brigades. On arriving at Tarazona, he was sent to Pozo Rubio, an officer's training school of the International Brigades near Albacete to receive military training. During his stay in Pozo Rubio, he took charge of an Anglo-Saxon group, a sniper school with Joe Schoen for a month before going back to Tarazona. He joined the Mackenzie Papineau Battalion in Madrid and later became officially a sergeant, taking charge of the section 36. He was in reserve on the central front before being sent to Valencia on December 31, 1937, fighting in the Battle at Teruel. A month later, he went on and got into actions at Seguro de los Baños and then in the Ebro Offensive until being wounded in his shoulder and arm. Having received treatment at a hospital in Mataro, he was sent to Barcelona in August 1938, and eventually returned to Canada in 1939.

Dr. Arthur (Art) Lesser (1932-2017) was a psychiatrist and a member of McMaster's Department of Psychiatry from 1969-1988.

John Leslie King was born July 4th, 1892, in Hornby, Ontario, to his father John Thomas King, and mother Mary Graham. He was the eldest of six children. During high school, King lived with his paternal aunt and her husband John Thomas King in Brampton. In 1910 King enrolled at the University of Toronto (UofT) to acquire his Bachelor of Arts to become a teacher. However, in his second year of the program, King developed a ruptured appendix. During his hospital stay, King was inspired by the work of the medical staff and decided to switch to medicine. King withdrew from the Arts program in late 1912 and took his first year of medicine at the University of Toronto the following year. The First World War broke out in 1914, causing many in UofT’s faculty of medicine to go overseas and, consequently, King’s medical program was accelerated. He and his classmates, one of whom was Frederick Banting, graduated in 1916 instead of the intended 1917.

Following graduation, King did an internship in surgery at the Guelph General Hospital and then took over a general practice in the village of Alton, Ontario, where he practiced for a year. King joined the army in 1918 and travelled to Siberia with the 16th Field Ambulance. Once the war was over, King worked 6 months at the Mayo Clinic before returning to his hometown of Hornby. He then worked for Dr. Marshall E. Gowland in Milton for seven years beginning in 1919 and ended up marrying his boss’ sister-in law, Amanda Partridge, with whom he had one daughter. In 1926, King opened his own general practice in Galt, purchasing it from a Dr. Charlton. In Galt, he was on the staff at both St. Mary’s and Grand River Hospitals. Dr. King died in 1984 at the age of 92 and is buried in Milton, Ontario.

William Kardash was born in Hafford, Saskatchewa on 10 June 1912. The youngest of nine children of Ukrainian Canadian parents Danylo Kardash and Ulyta Byck, he spent his early years in Saskatchewan and received education at Hafford High School. Interested in politics at a young age, Kardash joined the Communist Party of Canada and become an organizer for the Farmers' Unity League in Saskatchewan and Alberta. During the Spanish Civil War, Kardash served in the Mackenzie-Papineau (Mac-Pap) Battalion of the International Brigades from 1937-1938 and became an officer in command of 5 tanks. He was seriously wounded by shrapnel at the battle of Fuentes de Ebro and lost his right leg eventually. His experiences fighting in Spain was later turned into a pamphlet: I Fought for Canada in Spain.

Returning to Canada in 1938, Kardash moved to Winnipeg the following year and was elected to the Manitoba Legislature in 1941. He served as Winnipeg MLA from 1941 to 1958, as Worker's Candidate at first, then as a representative of the Labor-Progressive Party. In 1948, Kardash became the general manager of the People's Co-operative Dairy, Fuel and Lumber Yards and held this position until his retirement in 1982. He served as president of the board of directors for the co-operative until the business was sold to its employees in 1993, after which he chaired the Co-op Wind-up Committee.

On 27 March 1940, Kardash married Mary Kostaniuk (d.1994), daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Myron Kostaniuk of Winnipeg. They had one son, Teddy Vincent Kardash. Throughout his life, Kardash was active in Winnipeg's Ukrainian community, and, as a member of the Mac-Pap Veterans Association, he campaigned on behalf of the Veterans of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. After his death in 1997, the Manitoba Legislature held a moment of silence in his honour.

Louis Backer Jaques was born in Toronto on July 10th, 1911, to Robert Jaques and Ann Bella Shepherd. The middle of three children in a happy warm family, he received his education at Ryerson Public School and then Harbord Collegiate. He attended the University of Toronto and earned a BA in physiology and biochemistry (1932) and a MA in Physiology (1935). After graduation, he went on working in the laboratory of the Department of Physiology, pursuing his Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Charles H. Best and completed his doctor’s degree in 1941. in 1937 he received an appointment from Dr. Best as a demonstrator (later instructor) for the mammalian physiology labs for medical students, a teaching position he held till 1946. He was also assigned the lecture program for the dental students in 1940. In 1946, Dr. Jaques moved to the University of Saskatchewan with an appointment as professor and head of the Department of Physiology, a post he held until 1971. Following that he accepted a position as (the first) W.S. Lindsay Professor in the College of Medicine. Upon his retirement in 1979 he was named Professor Emeritus; and in 1981 he was named a lay canon by the Anglican diocese of Saskatoon

A scientist of international reputation, Jaques studied various aspects of blood coagulation and heparin as an anticoagulant. He was among the first to demonstrate the usefulness of heparin and dicumarol in treating thrombosis; to investigate the relation of stress to hemorrhage; and to originate the application of silicone in handling blood coagulation. In 1952 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and in 1977 he was awarded the Heart Foundation of Canada Outstanding Service Award as well as a Certificate of Appreciation by the Canadian Hemophilia Society. He died in Toronto on May 16, 1997.