FoMD Education Newsletter - July 2020

No. 21, July 2020

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the pandemic caused by the infectious agent COVID-19, which has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

Racism, in my opinion, is also a pandemic. Caused by hatred and ignorance, it can be infectious if unchecked by courage, truth and education. It has caused the deaths of millions of people.

Here in the FoMD, just as in the broader community, we are currently working to understand and remedy the pain and suffering brought about by these two global pandemics.

I struggled to write this, because how could any words—let alone those designed to be read within one minute—capture the impact of systemic racism within the FoMD? Words are simply not enough. We must have thoughtful actions and accountabilities.

The Office of Education is committed to listening to and learning from those impacted by racism, reviewing all aspects of education programming that may contribute to structural racism, and creating and maintaining a safe learning environment for all.

To help action these words, the Office of Education collaborates with many individuals and groups, including but not exclusive to:

Office of Professionalism
Faculty Learning Committee
Office of Advocacy & Wellbeing
The newly formed subcommittee of the assistant dean, Diversity, which will develop a substantive, action-oriented anti-racism strategy

The world changed with the COVID-19 pandemic. For many, the virus has brought fear and anxiety, and has taken their breath away. But there is hope. The scientific and medical communities have united to find a vaccine.

Racism also brings fear and anxiety and has taken the breath of many. Just as we have with the COVID-19 pandemic, we must unite to fight the pandemic of racism.

Mia Lang, MD, PhD
Co-Vice Dean, Education

Evaluating assessment: how do students feel about it?

In a recent study, Educational Research Methodologist with the School of Dentistry, Dr. Arnaldo Perez, brings the Doctor of Dental Surgery curriculum renewal to the forefront. Now that the dentistry curriculum is finishing up its first year of delivery, the School has started analyzing assessment strategies. Read more

U of A researchers work to make COVID-19 recommendations simple and understandable

U of A design professor Gillian Harvey worked with Alberta Health Services' harm reduction team to create easy-to-understand COVID-19 information resources for substance users, an especially vulnerable group during the pandemic. Read more

The Office of Education is pleased to welcome Dr. Darryl Rolfson as associate dean of the MD program for a three-year term, commencing October 1, 2020.

Dr. Rolfson is a professor in the Department of Medicine. He graduated from the University of Alberta’s MD program in 1993 and completed residencies in internal medicine in 1996 and geriatric medicine in 1998. He has contributed to medical education at the
U of A throughout his career, both as a teacher and as a leader, and has been recognized for teaching excellence by both undergraduate and postgraduate learners.

From 2008 to 2017, Dr. Rolfson was the program director for the Core Internal Medicine residency, leading a period of significant growth and change in residency training, especially relating to competency-based medical education.

From July 1 to September 30, Dr. David Rayner, associate professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathology, will serve as interim associate dean of the MD program.

Dr. Rayner completed his medical training at the University of Manitoba in 1977, and graduated as a Royal College fellow in anatomical pathology in 1982. His professional interests include renal pathology, immunopathology and medical education.

The Office of Education would like to acknowledge and give thanks to outgoing associate dean, Dr. Tracey Hillier, for her outstanding work while in this role, and we wish her all the best in her future endeavors.

New FoMD Liaison Librarian

Sandy Campbell is the new primary Liaison Librarian for the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry. A fixture at the John W. Scott Health Sciences Library for several years, Sandy has worked with many faculty members and researchers within the FoMD. Many of our other Health Sciences Librarians will be supporting Sandy’s work with the Faculty. Here is a breakdown of some of our other librarians and their liaison areas within the FoMD.

Janice Kung - Family Medicine; Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences; Laboratory Medicine & Pathology; and Basic Medical Sciences
Allison Sivak - Internal Medicine and its specialties, Oncology, Radiation Therapy and PGME
Liz Dennett - Emergency Medicine, Psychiatry, Pediatrics and UME
Liza Chan - Dentistry & Dental Hygiene

To make a virtual appointment with one of our expert librarians simply fill out our consultation request form. And, staff from the Health Sciences Library are available to help you via chat reference or email.

Congratulations to Jeenan Kaiser (Med 2023) and Muhammad Khan (Med 2023) recipients of a Gold Student Summer Service Fellowship!

The Gold Student Summer Fellowship program offers opportunities for medical students to complete a research or service project related to community health. Projects focus on understanding and/or enhancing culturally competent practice, developing skills to become a relationship-centered physician, and addressing a public health need in an underserved community or population; in 2020, projects were encouraged to consider the impact of COVID-19 . We look forward to learning more about the outcomes of your this deserving service project! Read more

Postgraduate Medical Education - Orientation 2020

We wish to extend a warm welcome to our new resident physicians and fellows in postgraduate medical education. Over 200 new PGME trainees have chosen the University of Alberta for the next step in their educational and professional journey. The COVID-19 Pandemic has dramatically changed the landscape of our world over the past number of months and, for the first time, our orientation was converted so almost all elements could be completed virtually.

Using the U of A online learning system, eClass, a site was purpose-built to host and distribute information, as well as functioning as a central communication hub for new residents as they got to know each other. We invite you to take a look at the orientation site here. Note: this ‘guest’ access will not provide a window into the discussion forums where over a thousand interactions between the residents occurred.

Thank you to all of the faculty and administrative staff who worked hard over the last month to ensure the online orientation was ready for the start of the 2020/2021 academic year. We look forward to meeting you at your training sites.

Questions or comments about the eClass site? Connect with Academic Technologies, actechmd@ualberta.ca

Dr. Richard Fedorak Memorial Award in Professionalism

The Richard Fedorak Memorial Award in Professionalism is awarded annually to a faculty clinician who best exemplifies the attributes of the profession that physicians and learners aspire to emulate. Congratulations to Dr. Francesco Mosaico, ’05 MD, Department of Family Medicine, first recipient of this legacy award. You can view Dr. Mosaico's acceptance video above, as well as the presentation of the award by Dr. Karen Grimsrud, '78 MD, here.

Canadian Association of Medical Education (CAME) Awards

At the CAME AGM on June 29, the Certificate of Merit winners were celebrated. We wish to congratulate our Certificate of Merit winners, Dr. Andrew Scarfe, Dr. Karen Forbes, and Dr. Alan McMahon. To see a video of all of the Certificate of Merit winners, including our own, click here. In addition, the successful applicants to the CAME Foundation Health Professions Education Research grants were announced. We wish to congratulate Dr. Anna Oswald, who was awarded the Faculty Health Professions Education Grant for her study, "Exploring the normalization of CBME processes".

An exciting new award was also announced - the CAME Rising Star Certificate of Merit for learners. This new Certificate of Merit will launch in Fall 2021, and each medical school will be able to nominate learners in each of the following categories: medical student, resident or fellow, and graduate student. The award will recognize learner contributions to health professions education and/or research.

See the video presentations of these awards as well as a recap of our Education Awards Week here.

L3 COVID-19 Webinar Series

COVID-19 in Children - Where do they catch it from? How do they present? What about treatment?
Speaker: Dr. Joan Robinson
Date: July 16, 2020, 7:00 p.m.
Register

Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children with SARS-CoV-2
Speaker: Dr. Ashley Humber
Date: July 23, 2020, 7:00 p.m.
Register

COVID-19 Pandemic and Pediatrics: More than we bargained for!
Speaker: Dr. Daniel Garros
Date: July 30, 2020, 7:00 p.m.
Register

For more info on the above webinars and past webinars from this series, click here.

Virtual Workshop - Covidence: Streamline workflows to save time in Systematic Reviews

Covidence helps with removing duplicates, citation screening, full-text review and more! Learn how to use Covidence to help you save time. This workshop is ideal for researchers who are planning to work on, or are in the early stages of, a systematic review project.

Date: August 12, 2020, 10 -11:00 a.m.
Register here

Registered participants will receive a link to connect remotely.

Contact us at fomdvde@ualberta.ca

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