Mala’s fellowship focused on how to increase physicians’ compassion during their residency, a stressful time in their training. She knew that during this time, physicians can become cynical and lose their ability to form strong human connections. 

During her project, she asked residents to reflect on and learn from their day-to-day experiences. Residents wrote short narratives about critical incidents that happened during their training. Their narratives were either related to patient-centred care, compassion, or their training environments. Mala analyzed these to isolate key issues in residency training. 

She presented workshops at the Queen University’s Conference on Academic Residency Education (QCARE) in 2013 and 2014, and delivered the project’s initial results at Medical Grand Rounds at Queen’s University and at the 2013 Canadian Conference of Medical Education (CCME).