Month: October 2011

This blog is a reflection of items brought to my attention that seem worth sharing. Please feel free to add, change, or comment.

Things are incredibly busy in the department as we approach family medicine forum in Montreal next week and NAPCRG in Banff the week after. In addition there are CIHR grant deadlines and other grants being prepared. The whole department is buzzing; for example we have a visit from Pudong university tomorrow to discuss family practice training. Our own residency program is continuing to rapidly expand – we have a new director –  Dr. Pierre Dil as Site Director of the new IMG Rural Program on Vancouver Island – welcome. CARMS is only a few months away and people are being asked to volunteer to review applications or to interview.
Julia Zhu, a resident in Vancouver, presented at research rounds today to get feedback on the protocol design for a study describing people’s ability to identify bed bugs. An itchy discussion.
The research network announced a competition for three, possibly four, groups to help develop a research submission. This will allow people to use (test) a new web platform to share ideas and documents as well as getting expert support on their protocol.

Martin Dawes

Hello from Vancouver! The sun has finally emerged and we’re enjoying a spell of dry weather and fall colours.

I was recently chatting with family physicians in Kamloops who are thinking of establishing a residency site. Despite their heavy workloads, many of the doctors are interested in training postgraduates from our program.

We hosted our bi-monthly research rounds on Wednesday, Oct. 12^th. Dr. Margaret McGregor conducted her presentation from a remote location using AdobeConnect, a web conferencing and online meeting tool. If you would like to join the research rounds, please contact Debra Hanberg at debra.hanberg@familymed.ubc.ca

By the way, Margaret is currently profiled on the front page of Canadian Family Physician as part of the journal’s “The Faces of Family Medicine” project. Congratulations, Margaret!

Just a reminder that the Department is hosting a bag luncheon on November 18^th, 12:00 noon at the St Paul’s CME event. We very much look forward to meeting you – our hard-working clinical faculty – face-to-face. The luncheon is fully booked with 250 doctors already registered – thank you! We hope to make this “meet-and-greet” an annual event for St. Paul’s CME registrants.

The department is also preparing for the visit of a delegation of 20 individuals from Pudong University near Shanghai, China. Our visitors are interested in learning more about our distributed model of family medical education and will be attending presentations and speaking in small groups to educators and administrators.