A research and learning network to develop more socially just rural care

Together with the Centre for Rural and Northern Health Research (CRaNHR) at Lakehead University, Michelle developed a network of rural health and policy researchers and practitioners to explore several questions:  What does it mean to be a socially just health researcher or practitioner?  How can we develop more relational, caring, and socially engaged health practitioners?…

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Integrating cultural safety teaching into an undergraduate medical curriculum

This fellowship explored the Indigenous concept of cultural safety as a framework for reimagining clinical encounters in a holistic way. A key goal of the fellowship project was to integrate teachings about cultural safety and Indigenous ways of knowing into the formal undergraduate medical curriculum to enhance therapeutic encounters between healthcare providers and their patients.

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Expansion and evaluation of ethics quality of care education in surgery

Ethics Quality of Care Rounds have been implemented during regular surgical rounds monthly at the University Health Network over two years. Residents select a case with an ethical dilemma and, along with the lead staff, determine key points and moderate an open-ended and confidential discussion with multiple levels of learners and faculty. The fellowship involves:…

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Compassionate approaches for leading change and evaluating educational programming within complex systems

Approaches to evaluating education still assume that evaluation is about rendering judgement about the quality of the work of others. This Fellowship is evaluating a new program evaluation model that enables improved identification and understanding of how a simulation-based curriculum in client and family-centred care brings value to the people in the system. The Fellowship…

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The curriculum of caring

The “Curriculum of Caring” prepares healthcare professionals to be more capable (comfortable, confident, competent) in delivering compassionate, person-centred care to patients generally considered harder to serve, specifically people with developmental disabilities (DD). The Curriculum of Caring began as a Hamilton/Niagara regional partnership of Bethesda Services with McMaster and Brock Universities to provide medical and nursing…

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Advancing compassionate care in family medicine

Cynthia’s work found a surprising absence of language about compassionate care in current family medicine standards. It gave us a better sense of where family medicine is doing well and where it can improve.

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