Family Medicine Residency Site: Abbotsford-Mission

Just weeks before the pandemic hit, this image was taken to capture our faculty and staff retreat organized by our incredible Site Coordinator, Ann Douglas. When I look at this photo, I’m reminded that our site’s success is reliant upon the efforts of our staff and faculty that are in the constant loop of rethinking and reimagining medical education.

Ann is instrumental in navigating our program through uncharted waters. She amazes us with her ability to organize, strategize, and coordinate our Residents’ educational journey; facilitate site events; and keep us on track. Over the years, she has supported our curriculum and broadened our Residents’ exposure to long-term care facilities as well as shared her knowledge, connections, and resources on the topic. She thoughtfully designs and supports our Preceptor Appreciation events, Resident graduations, and faculty retreats where we all feel cared for and welcomed.

We have grown exponentially, as individuals and as a team, since she joined us and we greatly appreciate her energy and wisdom that she brings to our collective intelligence.

Congratulations Ann!

~ Jacqueline

To Team 2020!

Seems like yesterday when we met early one morning and climbed a mountain together. Little did we know that we’d encounter such a large one nearing the completion of your journey that would challenge us in unique ways.

However, during that reflective jaunt in the wilderness, I learned a great deal about you and your desire to share, collaborate, and grow together. Throughout these last two years your enthusiasm, creativity, and desire to achieve have been inspiring. I loved the idea of inviting celebrity chef Michael Smith to our AHD! (Wish I could have been there!)

Your CaRMS video was hilarious and one of those classic keepers. The volleyball games showcased your competitiveness and team spirit. Your energy during our Pub & Papers Scholar Evening made it fun and so well organized. How many zoom meetings run ahead of schedule (and include a goat)?! You were spotless.

Therefore, I’m awarding Team 2020 the Coach’s Award for your perseverance, dedication, and excellence to your craft. I’m proud of you and am looking forward to your future accomplishments and successes. I also want you to know that I’m here, always, should you need to talk and sort things out.

Congratulations! Just keep climbing. And remember when exploring new terrain, be prepared for the unknown and make sure you pack the essentials and a few extras for your comrades.

Your Coach,
Jacqueline

“Simulcast Journal Club is a monthly series that aims to encourage simulation educators to explore and learn from publications on Healthcare Simulation Education. Each month we publish a case and link a paper with associated questions for discussion. Inspired by the ALiEM MEdIC series, we moderate and summarise the discussion at the end of the month, including exploring the opinions of experts from the field.”

The Article for June 2020:
Conigliaro, R., Peterson, K. and Stratton, T., 2020. Lack of Diversity in Simulation Technology. Simulation in Healthcare: The Journal of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, 15(2), pp.112-114.

Learn more and participate here: Simulcast Journal Club June 2020 – Diversity in Simulation

“Pulling out the ‘bad apples’ won’t solve the situation. ‘There’s a system problem,’ Dr. Terry Aldred said, ‘and there’s a way-that-we’re-trained problem.’

According to a 2015 report First Peoples, Second Class Treatment, ‘racism against Indigenous peoples in the health care system is so pervasive that people strategize around anticipated racism before visiting the emergency department or, in some cases, avoid care.’
….
‘It does not make it right and I’m not trying to create excuses,’ said Aldred, ‘but as somebody who walks in both worlds, medical students weren’t trained properly in cultural safety and humility.’ Training was aimed at creating confident practitioners who knew their stuff, she said. ‘They didn’t want the soft-spoken, tender-hearted person necessarily.’ She recalls some of her fellow medical students as exceptionally caring and altruistic whose demeanour changed dramatically after going through medical training.

Nearly 10 years out of school, Aldred is helping change the system from within. Besides her primary care practice with Carrier Sekani Family Services, she is site director with UBC’s Indigenous Family Medicine program, managing 10 medical residents in Victoria, Nanaimo and Vancouver. These days, residents get five times more Indigenous health content than Aldred did, and time spent working in Indigenous communities.

‘It’s kind of like changing the tide on a tsunami.’”

More here on Healthcare racism investigation should go beyond “bad apples” to systemic roots, says Indigenous doctor via Rocky Mountain Goat.

For this hackathon, we’re focusing on the theme of team dynamics. We’ve experienced a significant disruption in our ability to gather and meet face-to-face. Our teams flipped overnight to a virtual platform with an increasing reliance on asynchronous communication to accomplish our tasks. Given the dynamic circumstances, what strategies and methods are best in maintaining alignment of our people, our values, and program objectives? What group adaptations have evolved to ensure team success and fulfillment? What can UBC Faculty of Medicine do to support and develop us as faculty members, so that our teams and how we participate on them function as we want them to?

Spend your morning with us innovating and rethinking our paradigms. Prizes awarded for best ideas!

Register now.

CHES distributes a collection of medical education article abstracts to members. “We thank Dr. Gisèle Bourgeois-Law who has created these summaries for the education community at the Island Medical Program. While these articles have a medical education focus, we are using this opportunity to explore the value of such an initiative to our larger CHES community. Article themes include topics such as: feedback and mindfulness, those by local/BC educators, those relevant to a distributed medical program, and those with new ideas. Our aim is to include a variety of quantitative and qualitative research articles, review articles, and concept articles, some of which contain an interesting editorial or commentary. This summary is not meant to be comprehensive, nor to include everything of potential interest.”

These 3 caught my eye:

If you would like to nominate an article for future inclusion or have any questions, please email ches.communications@ubc.ca.

Congratulations to our Abbotsford-Mission Family Practice Residents who won the Lloyd Jones Collins Award for their scholar projects!

Uprooting Mood Disorders in the Fraser Valley: Community gardening as a non-pharmacologic treatment for outpatient anxiety and depression
Drs. Michelle Hanbidge & John Stimson

Food as medicine: An analysis of the health impact of ketogenic diet educational seminars on participants in a community-based family medicine practice
Dr. Rylan Duivestein

You can learn more about Michelle and John’s project here.

For more information, please visit the Women’s Health Research Institute here.

“The BMJ‘s special issue on racism in medicine reflects the working lives of doctors from ethnic minority backgrounds and the healthcare experiences of ethnic minority patients. This edition focuses on race and its impact on health. It is a timely reflection, as we in the UK try to make sense of the societal upheavals which have convulsed the country in recent times, and in which race, racism, and power have come under close scrutiny.”

Learn more here.

We stand in support of our #UBC faculties, programs, and departments that are observing #ShutDownSTEM #ShutDownAcademia #Strike4BlackLives

More here on Statement in support of Black Lives Matter and #ShutDownSTEM via UBC Science.