Relaunch of the Family Matters Newsletter

Welcome back, and to the first Family Matters issue of 2022. This relaunch features a few changes in response to feedback and consultation from around the Department of Family Medicine community, and will continue to evolve as the year goes on. 

The short-term goal of the newsletter relaunch is to ensure that the newsletter remains reliably functional and convenient, while also celebrating the achievements of our faculty and researchers. The long-term goal of the relaunch is to connect the narratives and factions of our widespread Family Medicine community to foster culture and appreciation. 

Key Changes to Note:

• There will be 8 "monthly" newsletters a year that are short, efficient, and feature primarily time-sensitive information and announcements. 
• There will be 4 "quarterly" newsletters a year (offset from the calendar quarters) featuring more narrative pieces, research features, publications and achievements. 
• "The Message from the Chair" will be found in the quarterly editions, while the monthly editions will include a "Message From..." another representative voice from the DoFM community. 
• Content submissions are encouraged to be submitted via submission forms.

Thank you for your patience and engagement in this process. Please direct questions to nbork@ualberta.ca. 

For content submission forms, deadlines, and the monthly vs. quarterly structure and schedule of the 2022 Family Matters Newsletter relaunch, click here. 

CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS & EVENTS

Summer Student Sessions

May 19 - July 21, 2022
Thursdays from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm (virtual)

The Research Program is once again hosting the Summer Student Sessions! These sessions are open to all students working in the department who want to learn more about scholarship and research. They will have a chance to hear from a variety of Department members on their career experiences and some tips and tricks for developing a research profile. Please contact Andrea (gruneir@ualberta.ca) or Oksana (obabenko@ualberta.ca) if interested.

Introduction to Systematic Review Searching Workshop (4 Part)

June 13 - 16, 2022 
11:00 am - 12:00 pm daily

For more information and to register for all four sessions, click here.

Communication & Collaboration Series: Constructive Communications Pt. 2

Tuesday, June 7, 2022 
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm (virtual)

How a team communicates can build the foundation positive relationships. We will review and build on the concepts for effective communication discussed in Part 1. This session will focus on “critical communications" – times when emotions can run high. You will have the opportunity to practice with the words and strategies that will help you keep critical conversations constructive. This session is hosted by Lynn Kirkland as part of the  Communication & Collaboration Series developed in partnership with the Faculty & Staff Development Program.

Register here.

TTCxFSD Excel Level 2 Session

Friday, June 17, 2022
10:00 am to 11:30 am (virtual)

In this 90 minute session, you will advance your abilities to create formulas as you learn about absolute references, named ranges, and order of operations. We'll show you how to use additional functions such as AVG, IF, ROUND, and more. Then you'll see how to protect the formulas you create. We'll show you how to manage data across several worksheets and workbooks, consolidating data and linking formulas. Then we'll take a look at how to create and modify charts to create a visual representation of your spreadsheet data.

Register here.

NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

FSD Director Receives Med Ed Conference Award

Karen Moniz, Director of Staff and Faculty Development received the "Best Poster Award" at the International Innovations in Medical Education Conference (2022) for her poster entitled "The teaching connection when your clinic is your classroom: Ethnography as an innovation."

FACULTY & STAFF DEVELOPMENT 

HEALTH CARE PROVIDER AND TEAM RESOURCES

MESSAGE FROM...

The pandemic obviously pushed many to a higher stress level than before, but our Rural teachers continued to embrace learners through the difficult times and often learners instilled the much needed perspective of keenness and curiosity through it all. Despite the fluctuations of workforce, Rural committed through ICC and PNME programs. It is worth highlighting that we managed to run our GI PNME block during the peak Delta wave. 

For the learners, Rural medicine was uniquely positioned to bridge the gap in clinical training during the pandemic, providing the perfect antidote. As for our Rural preceptors, they felt that teaching was the most professionally-grounding factor during this pandemic—besides attending the Fall Harvest of course. 

Knowing how “snooze fest” my Fall Harvest conference topic could be (titled nothing less than: The Medical Learner and Heuristics…), I tasked my talented ICC student,Stephanie, to draw a few scenarios (pictured above). The idea was to “sprinkle” a few thought-provoking drawings in an attempt to keep the eyeballs of the audience open, at least intermittently. We tried to envision Healthcare/Medical Education 30 years from now. 

Is this truly where we are headed? And if so... what are we doing about it?

- Dr. Firdaus M. Mydeen