March 2021 | View as Webpage
Campus Update: The Waterloo Regional Campus remains closed to all students and residents. The WRC staff and leadership team are still working virtually and are accessible to all questions and concerns via email. For a full list of contacts, please click here
Campus Staff/Faculty Updates
Baby Arik
Join us in congratulating Miracle Roshan, (REL Administrative Assistant) and husband Roshan and son Aarav, on the new arrival of their beautiful baby boy. Arik Roshan was born on February 12, 2021.
Congratulations to Dr. Shane Neilson, MFA, MA, PhD, CCFP, FCFP, who received funding for his SSHRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Ottawa.

Shane will be working with Dr. Jennifer Blair from the University of Ottawa, conducting research with a Canadian literature scholar invested in disability studies and a vision to expand CanLit's repertoire in the field.

Shane will refine medicare’s socioeconomic origin story as told by Taylor, Gratzer, Naylor, and others by incorporating literary narrative to provide context for the social forces driving the development of socialized medicine. His account will concern certain historically and geographically located versions of capitalism that ultimately becomes a nationalized programme of redistribution to create equality and establish democracy. The cultural component he will analyze has not only been entwined in socialized medicine’s story, it is also the testimony of the social basis of and for care. With dozens of policy books and economic histories published to date about Canadian medicare that have not dismantled neoliberal rationing, Shane ask: How can the history of socialized medicine as it appears in Canadian literature change how we view what the purpose of care is? What is the cultural logic for the development of socialized medicine in our nation’s literature and what does that mean for Canadians now? What might be the possible path to a reinvigoration of care as interpreted from a period in which the socialized system was gestating? 
Vaccine Information for Primary Care and Community Specialists
in Waterloo Region
Sending on behalf of Dr. Sharon Bal, Primary Care Physician on the Regional Vaccine Task Force;

Here is an update on important information related to scheduling your COVID-19 vaccine.

Pre-registration for the vaccine:
The region plans to start vaccinating community-based healthcare professionals, such as pharmacists, family physicians, specialists and dentists (and their office staff), the week of March 8. You can pre-register here: http://regionofwaterloo.ca/VaccinePreReg.

You and your office staff members will be able to sign up using this link. You will likely receive your vaccine at one of the mass vaccination sites. There will be one in Waterloo, and another in Cambridge (locations will be released shortly). More information will follow. (Note: some physicians, NPs and pharmacists may be eligible for an earlier vaccine, if they are providing COVID testing.)

Getting your vaccine:
When you go to get your vaccine, it is recommended that you bring identification/proof of employment in a medical office. This might include a printout of your registration (for licensed health professionals) or a copy of a pay stub from your clinic or a letter from your employer (for staff). This information is not required, but may be helpful to prove you are eligible for the vaccine, if any concerns arise.

Providers who work in Waterloo Region, but live in a different region:
Medical/dental office staff and clinicians who work in Waterloo Region will be eligible to receive the vaccine in Waterloo Region. See the pre-registration link above.


If you have additional queries or questions about who is in the eligible priority groups, please see the Ministry of Health document for details: COVID-19: Guidance for Prioritizing Health Care Workers for COVID-19 Vaccination

The above document only applies to MDs living/working in Region of Waterloo. Pre-registration for eligible priority groups/healthcare providers in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health can be found here: https://wdgpublichealth.ca/your-health/covid-19-information-workplaces-and-living-spaces/covid-19-information-public/covid-19-5
We're Hiring!
Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University
Undergraduate Medical Education Program Leadership Position

Director - Student Advising

Applications are invited for the position of Director - Student Advising. The Director, Student Advising is a member of the Student Affairs Advisory Group, reporting to the Chair, Student Affairs with responsibility for the Student Advising Program. The Director, Student Advising works closely with the Chair, Student Affairs (for Hamilton campus students) and the Student Affairs Director of each regional campus (for regional campus students) to deliver the student advising program.


Interested applicants for this position should submit a cover letter and CV addressed to Dr. Amanda Bell, Regional Assistant Dean, UGME. This should be submitted to Ms. Barb Kidd ([email protected]) prior to Friday, March 12, 2021.

WRC Program for Faculty Development
WRC Education Scholarship Team
In health professional education, many of us must assess the performance of learners, some of us evaluate the performance of our educational programs, and a few of us might focus our attention on the performance of assessment tools. How do we determine whether a learner has met the standards of performance? What do the test scores mean? The answers to these questions lie in the science of psychometrics.

This month, we are featuring this scholarship resource: McMaster’s Health Professional Education Research (HPER) Course Module 1-3: Psychometrics. You can find this embedded video in this Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQSY9g1XocM&feature=emb_logo.

In this 24min video, Professor Sandra Monteiro of McMaster University gives a foundational review of assessment tools and psychometrics. Spoiler alert: there is no perfect assessment tool; the tools we use are a compromise of competing priorities.
At the end of the video, please answer the following questions:
  1. What are the five factors in designing an assessment tool?
  2. What is reliability and validity?

To join the WRC community of educational scholarship, use this link by March 31st: https://join.slack.com/t/wrceducationa-jej1530/shared_invite/zt-muz8j7tz-olUJxHrcBSLWfyg4NtVN2w
This COVID-inflected workshop provides craft-based techniques - the equivalent of the biomedical “skills-based” and “competency” models - to health practitioners in order to create beautiful written works that, in the creation, are acts of care for the creator. Through a series of guided prompts that teach specific techniques, and through the sharing of work in a safe space, the participants become better writers, self-carers, and also better physicians through the processing of their own experience. 

Presenters:
Shane Neilson, MD MFA MA PhD CCFP FCFP
Damian Tarnopolsky, Ph.D
 
Co-facilitators:
Sean Park, Ph. D
Catherine Tong, MD, CCFP(EM), FCFP
 
Overall Learning Objectives:
At the end of this learning activity the participants will be able to:
  • Describe the benefits and the limits of narrative medicine as traditionally deployed in med ed pedagogy 
  • Gain skills in reflective practise through a craft-based approach 
  • Practise generative and editing techniques through individual and group work.

**Accreditation pending
Grab your lunch, or your popcorn and join us in this episode of the PFD watch party with WRC!
For the remainder of the academic year we will be streaming a selection of the best recorded webinars from MacPFD.ca, 12-1, on the last Monday of the month.

On Monday, March 29th 2021, we will follow up on the theme of Advocacy with an episode of “Social Media 101”, co-facilitated by a panel of McMaster social media experts: Teresa Chan, Tara Packham and WRC’s Sharon Bal.
We will run 3 short videos of under 15min each to discuss how to use and leverage social media in your clinical, academic and advocacy work.

Date and Time: Monday, Mar 29, 2021 – 12pm-1pm
Where: Zoom
Facilitation and commentary provided by WRC faculty: Catherine Tong and Sharon Bal

Recorded Past WRC Events:

The Learner in Distress: An Approach to Mental Health Amongst Medical Learner

To obtain access to the recording, please email: [email protected]
Call for Applications
The Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact at McMaster University is pleased to announce that the application portal for the Graduate Diploma in Clinical Epidemiology (GDCE) program is now open. The application deadline is March 31st 2021 and the program will begin September 1st 2021.
 
GDCE is an established online (since 2015) course-based program covering core topics of clinical epidemiology. Four online part-time graduate courses are offered as one harmonized package for the Diploma:
 
·        Fundamentals of Health Research and Evaluation Methods (HTHRSM 771)
·        Introduction to Biostatistics (HTHRSM 774)
·        Introduction to Research Methods for Randomized Controlled Trials (HTHRSM 772)
·        Systematic Review Methods (HTHRSM 773)
 
Upon completion of the GDCE, a Graduate Diploma will be awarded to students by McMaster University, home of the graduate degree program in Health Research Methodology (HRM) by the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact. The cost of the program is approximately $14,800 (charged at $3,700 CAD per graduate course). Note that each course is offered in one term, e.g. Fall (September to December), Winter (January to April), and Spring/Summer (May to August), with the last course the following Fall, and is typically around 14 weeks in duration. The program will take 16 months to complete.
Faculty Development from Other Campuses
Chat Series: Leadership

CHAT stands for Conversations in Healthcare, Academia, and Teaching. This is a group-based discussion program that will feature key topics set for by a unified group of organizers on a given them. After a successful pilot in Fall 2020, we have decided to expand the CHAT series. The version of the CHAT program will be a series that focuses on common issues encountered by leaders in the FHS.

Each session will have a standard format:
  • Intro (10-15 min) - Short keynote to set the tone. This will be recorded for web content later on.
  • Breakout Rooms (30 min) - Guided discussion on key CHAT questions. These will NOT be recorded.
  • De-Brief & Work To Do (10 min) - Discussion of takeaways and how to implement / amplify learnings from the session. These will not be recorded.
  • Reflections (5 min) - Session leaders provide final reflections (This will be recorded for podcast & web video)

Date and times for this CHAT series:
Future-Proof: Building Leadership Skills for Tomorrow
  • Thursday, March 11, 2021 - 12pm
  • Discussant: John Van Aerde

Leaders: Team Wellness Starts with You
  • Thursday, April 8, 2021 - 8pm
  • Discussant: Dr. Mithu Sen & Dr. Mamta Gautam

Building a Data-Driven Organizational Culture
  • Thursday, May 13, 2021 - 12pm
  • Discussant: Zahave Uddin

Navigating Complexity to Align Teams and Drive Results
  • Thursday June 10, 2021 - 12pm
  • Discussant: Rebecca Repa
PBL Bootcamp Series
Problem-based learning is a staple of health professional education. It is resource intensive and requires a large number of skilled faculty members. It can be challenging for faculty members not familiar with the principles and techniques. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced new challenges to PBL tutorials. A team of inter-professional experts have worked together to produce an updated series of PBL tutorial facilitation faculty development that address the needs of new tutors, virtual tutors, and experienced tutors.

Learning Objectives:
  • Describe the basic principles and techniques of problem-based learning in health professional education
  • Apply best practice virtual facilitation skills to PBL tutorials
  • Develop an approach to difficult scenarios during tutorials

Dates and times for this series:
PBL Basics
  • Thursday, April 15, 2021 - 6pm
  • Discussants: Jocelyn Harris, Karen McAssey, Catherine Tong

Thriving in Virtual PBT
  • Tuesday, April 20, 2021 - 6pm
  • Discussants: Justine Hamilton, Maria Pratt, Sarrah Lal

Advanced PBL
  • TBD
  • Discussants: Eric Greenwald, Sharon Bal, Michael Lee-Poy

**Accreditation Pending
FHS's Women Symposium: Leading Healthcare and Beyond

Increasingly, we know that women are underrepresented in academia and healthcare settings. The 2021 Women’s Symposium will be a venue where we can bring together women and their allies to consider how we might close the gap over time.

This will represent the first of these events, which we are hoping will evolve into an ongoing annual conference over time.

All faculty members who identify as women and allies of women within the Faculty of Health Sciences (and beyond) are invited to join us.

Each session will have a mix of external speakers and FHS leaders interested in exploring key topics around how we might increase the number of women in healthcare leadership positions in both academia and clinical work.

Overall Learning Objectives:
  • List key issues facing women in academia, leadership, healthcare, and society;
  • Add new skills to your basic toolkit for approaching key barriers that women face in academia, leadership, health care, and society;
  • Create connections between women and allies across McMaster Faculty of Health Sciences and beyond.
Conference Alerts
University of Waterloo Virtual Conference on Aging, COVID-19 and the Adoption of Health Technology

Hosted by the School of Public Health and Health Systems (SPHHS), Network for Aging Research (NAR), and the Centre for Bioengineering and Biotechnology (CBB), this free virtual event will take place over two afternoons and examine the promise and limits of technology to promote successful longevity by featuring a diverse group of leaders.

The speakers are aging and technology researchers, clinicians and frontline workers, members of advocacy groups, policymakers, technology officers from industry and visionaries that have implemented innovative models for supporting older adults.

Please register below. Instructions for accessing the platform will be provided prior to the conference.
10-B Victoria Street South
Kitchener, Ontario, N2G 1C5
(519) 885-5426