Message from the Associate Dean, MD Program
The 2022-2023 academic year in the MD Program was notable for being the first to remain fully uninterrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic since 2018-19. It was fantastic to finally leave the disruptions and uncertainty behind us and get back to in-person learning and operations, and heartening to see the return of the energy and community that having learners, faculty and staff on our campuses brings.
While the past several years have been incredibly challenging, I also hope that we have managed to seize this difficult time wherever possible as an opportunity to innovate the ways we communicate with each other, how we build and maintain community, and how we deliver the best learning experience possible to train the next generation of physicians.
This past year, we continued to prioritize identifying ways to improve existing programs while finding innovative solutions to enhance the experience of our learners and build a stronger and more diverse community throughout the MD Program.
Professor Marcus Law
Associate Dean, MD Program
Temerty Faculty of Medicine
Program Innovations
These MD Program innovations have been advanced over the past year, offering learners unique ways to enhance their education with streamlined processes to improve their experience of critical supports.
Discussing, Disclosing, or Reporting Learner Mistreatment
Ensuring the safety of learners is our highest priority as we strive to provide a learning environment that is professional and free from all forms of intimidation, discrimination, harassment, and other forms of disrespect. In 2022-2023, the Medical Education portfolio, which includes the MD Program, continued to improve upon processes for learners to come forward if they witness or experience mistreatment. This has included ensuring appropriate supports and resources for learners, a fair, empathetic, and accountable process for concerns to be reviewed and addressed, and a mechanism for reporting back to Temerty Medicine through an annual Learner Experience Report.
The creation of a common pathway for coming forward to discuss, disclose or report instances of alleged learner mistreatment is a significant step toward improving learner confidence in their ability to bring concerns forward, while addressing concerns regarding potential retaliation. The Learner Experience Unit in the Office of Learner Affairs, which supports learners in the MD Program and PGME (residents and clinical fellows), will be expanding in Fall 2023 to cover additional clinical learners at Temerty including learners in the Physician Assistants, Medical Radiation Sciences, Physiotherapy, Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, and Speech Language Pathology programs. The standardization in language, framework and approaches to managing concerns across learner cohorts will create a culture of shared expectations and responsibilities.
This common pathway also helps to better support faculty and staff on the frontlines, by providing them with an avenue to refer learners or consult the Learner Experience Unit to ensure procedural consistency across Temerty Medicine in how reports of alleged mistreatment are managed. A faculty development working group has recently created a PRIMER for learner-facing teachers (senior learners, faculty and staff) to enable them to assist learners in navigating Temerty resources.
In addition to the common pathway, the MD Program has increased efforts to communicate directly with learners in the form of dedicated newsletters and presentations embedded within the curriculum, to build awareness around these resources.
MD/MBA Program
The MD/MBA, a combined degree program offered jointly by the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and the Rotman School of Management, graduated its first cohort of learners in 2023. This new program allows learners to complete both the MD Program and MBA in five years rather than the six years it would take if the degrees were undertaken consecutively.
Students begin their management studies after completing the first three years of the MD Program then integrate back to the remainder of clerkship. The final year of the combined program balances medical and management studies. The MD/MBA is designed to address the need for doctors who also possess management training expertise as the complexity of healthcare delivery continues to increase.
“Leadership, problem solving, change management and persuasion—these kinds of skills are integral to the way we function as physicians, particularly in resource-strained environments,” says Year 4 Clerkship Director Dr. Seetha Radhakrishnan. “When our learners become practising physicians, be it in a hospital or in a community office, they do not practice in isolation but rather in teams where they will often be in leadership roles.”
Education Scholarship
The MD Program supports the development of evidence-based best practices for pre-clinical and clinical learning, as well as assessment methodologies and program evaluation. MD faculty and administrators collaborate on research projects that advance health professional education.
Awards
The MD Program recognizes that teaching and mentorship are central to our success. We administer several awards as part of our commitment to support and recognize excellence and leadership in education.
The W. T. Aikins Awards are the Temerty Faculty of Medicine's most prestigious awards for sustained commitment and excellence in undergraduate teaching.
The Miriam Rossi Award for Health Equity in Undergraduate Medical Education recognizes MD Program faculty members and administrative staff for their commitment to diversity and health equity.
The Norman Rosenblum Award for Excellence in Mentorship in the MD/PhD Program recognizes faculty members, residents or administrative staff who exhibit an exemplary level of leadership and commitment to mentorship and role modeling for MD/PhD students in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine.
The Excellence in Resource Stewardship Teaching Award in the MD Program was established in 2021. It recognizes faculty members and postgraduate trainees (residents and fellows) who mentor learners in concepts of resource stewardship and demonstrate exemplary resource stewardship in their own clinical practices.
