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

Upcoming FoMD Faculty Development Sessions

Curriculum Design Workshop October 06, Thursday, 9:00-11:00 am
November 16, Wednesday, 2:00-4:00 pm

11th Annual PEIP (Practical Evidence for Informed Practice) Conference

October 21-22, 2022 Hybrid event: Double Tree Edmonton and live webcast

The PEER team (that brings you Tools for Practice) is happy to announce our 11th Practical Evidence for Informed Practice (PEIP) conference. Our rapid-fire format (20 minute talks) summarizes the evidence on clinically relevant primary care topics in an entertaining fashion. This event and the speakers continue to be free from industry support. 2022 topics include:

Weighing in on weight – slimming down the evidence
Old tricks for new people – Evidence + Experience in Pediatrics
When Should a Drug Approval = Your Approval?
Anemia for the clinician
Myths of Medicines
What’s New, What’s True and What’s Poo – updates on the latest evidence in primary care … and much more!

We have a great line up of fantastic speakers: including a mix of your favourites (Mike Allan, James McCormack, Jessica Kirkwood, Tina Korownyk) and some great new PEIP presenters (Menaka Pai - Hematology, Hamilton Ontario; Adam Keough – Sport Medicine, Edmonton)

For more information or to sign up for the program mail out, click here.

Building a Better System to Support Canadian Family Caregivers

Webinar Series: Do you think it is time we Built a Better System to Support Canadian Family Caregivers?

On behalf of Dr. Jasneet Parmar, Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta and our Caregiver-Centered Care co-design team, we are inviting stakeholders interested in how family caregivers (policy makers and influencers, health and social care leaders and providers, not for profit leaders and influencers, family caregivers) to Participate in a series of National Conversations to answer the question: What are the key elements needed to support Canadian family caregivers? Who needs to be involved in building a better system to support Canadian family caregivers?

Information about the series and registration: https://www.caregivercare.ca/webinars

NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

Pre-Announcement: Café Scientifique Program

Application Deadline: Winter 2023

CIHR is pleased to announce the launch of a refreshed Café Scientifique Program. A previously successful CIHR Knowledge Mobilization program, it has been updated to reflect and support CIHR’s Strategic Plan 2021-2031 commitments to: 1) maximize results for Canadians by prioritizing the dissemination and implementation of existing knowledge to inform health practice and policy and enhance health equity ; and 2) improve the health literacy of Canadians and empowering them to take charge of their own health. Any researcher or Canadian resident affiliated with an organization or institution is eligible for funding. Knowledge users, knowledge keepers, patients, person(s) with lived/living experience, and trainees are encouraged to apply. Read the pre-announcement.

FACULTY & STAFF DEVELOPMENT

Introduction to SPSS: SPSS IBM Application

This session will introduce SPSS (also known as SPSS IBM Statistics) features to
individuals who have not used the software before. It will start at a very basic level,
covering the Data View, Variable View, and SPSS Menu options, and then moving onto
the data editor (creating new data files, importing existing files to SPSS, and saving
data files). Click here to register.

Watch: September 2022 Grand Rounds

In case you missed it—the recording of our September 2022 Grand Rounds presentation is available here, and in the Faculty & Staff Development eClass course. If you require access to the FSD eClass course, please email ajseiler@ualberta.ca.

Faculty & Staff Development Suggestion Box

Your professional development matters, your feedback matters. Let us know what you think, we love to hear it!

SPOTLIGHT

Mirella Chiodo: Director of Health Services and CBAS, Quality and Informatics Supervisor

You'd be hard-pressed to find someone in the Department of Family Medicine who hasn't worked with Mirella Chiodo in some capacity. After 17 years with our department—preceded by some 20 years working at the Royal Alexandra Hospital Family Medicine Centre teaching site—Mirella has no shortage of experience learning and leading the advancement of health services support. As technology and informatics have evolved drastically over the last two decades, Mirella's specializations have been particularly affected by the age of information, but she's proven herself more than up to the challenge.

No wonder she claims her facilitation and change-management skills as her most treasured tools:

Being given the opportunity to advance my education in both of these areas and more importantly the ability to use those skills often has been very fulfilling albeit sometimes challenging. We have certainly had to deal with a ton of change over the years. When I think back to where we were for instance in our academic teaching clinics when I first started to the present time, we went from completely analog and paper systems to state-of-the-art automation.

Planning and collaboration are key to Mirella's work, but luckily her motivation is rooted in "the people and the work. Everyone seems so connected and truly work towards the common mission and vision of this department." The highlight of her career so far is the result of such a collaboration, one that the Department of Family Medicine might refer to as a gem in its collection: the MacEwan University Health Centre.

After years of planning—to be able to see it come to fruition was a great moment in my career. The most valuable part of it was working on the "dream team" who made it all come together.

Regarding future plans, Mirella is involved in the early planning stages of another MUHC-style clinic in South Edmonton and is "looking forward to another challenge." However, when she needs a more predictable challenge, Mirella finds cooking to be a relaxing way to "make sense of the world. I turn to cooking where I can control the outcome."

Spotlight Nomination

Nominate a faculty or staff member for future inclusion in a Family Matters spotlight! The spotlight process has been streamlined to make participating in both the nomination and the spotlight more convenient and efficient.

MESSAGE FROM...

Our department carries out its work at the junction of several organizations and industries. At
the macro level we straddle the sometimes vast chasm between post-secondary education and
health workforce training. At operational levels we work directly with Alberta Health on Clinical ARP and other matters, and with various areas of AHS and Covenant Health to co-manage our
teaching clinics. And, of course we interact with the provincial and national family medicine
licensing bodies.

Being intimately involved with so many entities and sub-entities renders us susceptible to the intentional and unintentional consequences of changes implemented by any and all of them. This in turn places us at risk of deviating from our core mission, which is to teach and improve the practice of family medicine, which we have become quite good at.

We know that we will have a new premier in early October and that primary care reform is a priority to all three leading candidates for the position. We should expect, then, that changes that affect the department will arise. Our task is to identify the changes that could impact our mission and navigate our way forward without diminishing the quality of our educational and research outputs. It can be accomplished– we’ve done it before.

- Mark Perreault, Academic Department Manager

Mark Perreault grew up on a farm in east-central Alberta. He has an undergraduate degree in philosophy, graduate training in economics, and an MBA in project management, tempered by more than 20 years of leadership across several private-sector industries in Canada and Malaysia. He first joined the department in 2003 as project manager on a one-year contract to design the transition to alternate clinical funding and AARP grant funding and to secure the necessary funding. Returning to the department in 2006 Mark led implementation of the new operating and funding models and guided the department through additional significant changes in 2009, 2012, and 2018 as Director, Assistant Chair, and now Academic Department Manager.

NEXT IN FAMILY MATTERS...

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