As a community, we are grieving. The tragic loss of life on Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 has touched our university, our city and our country deeply. Among the 176 victims, more than 50 Canadians were lost. Many of those Canadians were associated with 19 universities and colleges across the country, including 10 members of our own U of A community. The loss of educators, future scholars and innovators is profound. 

On behalf of the FoMD Office of Education, I would like to express my heartfelt condolences to the colleagues, friends, families and loved ones of those lost.  

It is not unusual to experience reactions that may require some extra support. Please know that the university and our Faculty are committed to ensuring you have the support you need during this difficult time. Please visit this webpage for more information on the various resources available through the university. The Office of Advocacy & Wellbeing is here to provide support for FoMD staff, students and faculty members as well. 

Today, January 15 at 11 a.m. MST, we will be observing a moment of silence to reflect on those lost in this devastating tragedy. I encourage you to take pause at 11 a.m. today, wherever you may be. 

Help us shape our future health sciences library

As you may have heard, the John W. Scott Health Sciences Library will be moving from its current location in the Walter C. Mackenzie Centre in the coming years. University of Alberta Library is pleased to announce that we are planning a new space for our health sciences library. You can learn more about our future Health Sciences Library here. 

Library staff are working with UAlberta Facilities and Operations to create a new space prior to the end of our lease with Alberta Health Services in 2024. The library is collecting ideas from students, faculty and staff about how they envision the future health sciences library. We encourage everyone to share their ideas through this online form. 

Please join the Academic Technologies and U of A Libraries teams for a 45 minute update with respect to the anatomy, radiology and critical thinking provost grant.

Date: Thursday, January 16, 2020

Time: 12:10 - 12:55 p.m.

Location:  Walter C. Mackenzie Health Sciences Centre - WMC 2F1.01 (Classroom A - located near the entrance of the John W. Scott Health Sciences Library)  

This engagement session invites anyone in the broader UAlberta community to weigh in on the direction we are heading and for us to share what we have learned to date. 

We've now completed two digital anatomy showcases, solicited your feedback both during and after those sessions, held further working group sessions, and solicited input through an online survey. 

We will present a short overview and open the remainder of the time for dialogue and questions.  

There is no need to RSVP for this event as we will not be serving refreshments.  Please feel free to bring along your lunch. 

If you have any questions about this update, please reach out to Jamie Stewart.  

IDEAS Office Hosts Inaugural HPE Scholarship Day

On December 5, 2019 the IDEAS Office hosted its inaugural Health Professions Education (HPE) Scholarship Day, a full-day conference focused on scholarship in the health professions faculties at University of Alberta.  The conference featured plenary speaker Glenn Regehr, PhD, Senior Scientist and Associate Director of Research at CHES and Professor (Department of Surgery) at the University of British Columbia.  Multiple concurrent sessions were offered, including:  oral presentations (15 presenters); Great IDEAS presentations, featuring newer projects which do not yet have results (10 presenters); facilitated poster sessions (22 presenters), an Educators’ Lounge discussion group, as well as a workshop conducted by Dr. Regehr.

We had 75 attendees - including 31 trainees - representing 12 departments and three offices within the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, as well as Education and Rehabilitation Medicine.  Presenters included faculty and FSOs, Teaching Scholars Program (TSP) scholars, and students who were involved with the HPE summer studentship grant program.  The conference offered an opportunity to present our research projects, learn from (and about) one another, and foster connections within and between our various departments and programs.

Among our presenters were several exemplary projects which received “best of” awards in each presentation category: 

Best of Oral Presentations:

Alysa Fairchild (Department of Oncology) and student Jonathan Dubue, Seeing Through Our Patients’ Eyes:  The Sartore Multidisciplinary Studentship in Supportive Care in Oncology

Isabelle Gray (Department of Emergency Medicine), Evidence-based Medicine Simulation:  Teaching Real-time Literature Searching to Emergency Medicine Residents

Shelley Ross (Department of Family Medicine), Self-regulated Learning Behaviours as Reported by PGY1 Residents in Two Family Medicine Programs

Best of Great IDEAS:

Charles Larson (Department of Pediatrics), Industrial Design Meets Intensive Care:  Design of an Innovative Congenital Heart Disease Curriculum for Residents

Cynthia Palmaria (Department of Oncology), Learning from Cancer Survivors as Standardized Patients:  Radiation Therapy Students’ Perspective

Best of Poster Presentations:

Geoffrey Bostick (Faculty of Rehabilitation), Improving the Efficiency of Item Development using Cognitive Models and Automated Item Generation and Test Assembly 

Melissa Shyian (Division of Medical Laboratory Science), Developing Advanced Simulations to Assess Health Information Technology in Medical Laboratory Science Students

Sietske Speerstra (MD Program), A Concerted Approach to Curriculum Mapping by Summer Students

Emily Zehnder (MD Program student), Eye-tracking to Augment Knowledge Elicitation in Neonatal Resuscitation Education

Best of Educators’ Lounge:

Darryl Rolfson (Department of Medicine), Starting the Day Over

We are delighted that so many people participated, and made our first HPE Scholarship Day a success! 

For more information on the HPE Scholarship Day, or to learn how the IDEAS Office can support you in your research, please visit our website, or contact us at ideasctr@ualberta.ca.

(Photo by Jordan Carson, FoMD - Dr. Carol Hodgson, Director of the IDEAS Office, introduces plenary speaker Dr. Glenn Regehr of UBC)