Archived

ContributorsLaura Cleghorn, Managing Director, ResearchBethany Elliott, PCRC Administrative Director Whether you’re dreaming about a new teaching tool or clinical intervention, curious about using EMR data … Continue reading DFM Fund: Supporting scholarship and innovation in Family Medicine →

Contributor: Michael Lee-Poy Reference

Contributor: Nancy Devlin A primary preceptor is the resident’s clinical coach, competency coach, and career advisor throughout their two-year Family Medicine residency. Their practice serves … Continue reading Shaping the Future of Primary Care!Highlighting Primary Preceptor Resources →

Contributor: Dr. Cindy Donaldson Successful supervision of IMG residents involves bringing our optimal teaching skills to bear in a compressed time frame, in addition to … Continue reading IMG residency training- Setting the Stage for Success →

Contributor: Dr. Courtney Field Recipes for Wellness: Finding the Right Ingredients to Avoid Burnout in Training and Practice, Part 1 & 2.  Planet Family Doc … Continue reading Recipes for Wellness: Finding the Right Ingredients to Avoid Burnout in Training and Practice, Part 1 & 2.  Planet Family Doc Podcast, December 2023 Episode →

Contributor: Dr. Lauren Kielstra

Contributor: Dr. Karthiha Raveenthiran Summary:As technology becomes increasingly present in clinical practice, it is common in direct clinical observation to see learners drawn to the … Continue reading Approach to teaching active listening in the age of artificial intelligence: Lessons from the Japanese art of aizuchi →

Contributor: Dr Amie Davis Takeaway Tidbits Info-Morsel – February 2025 Download PDF Version

Contributor: Alison Baker Ever wonder what happens to the Portfolio Review form you’ve completed with your resident three time per year? Each DFM residency training … Continue reading Competence Committees in the Department of Family Medicine →

Contributor: Courtney Manser MD, CCFP (PC) Take Away Tidbits: Compassion can be defined as sympathy or concern for the suffering of others whereas empathy is … Continue reading Moving from Empathy to Compassion: Training Ourselves and Our Learners →

Contributors: Laura Cleghorn, Managing Director, Research Bethany Elliott, Administrative Director, David Braley Primary Care Research Collaborative (PCRC) Do you have an idea that you would … Continue reading DFM Research & Scholarship Info Morsel →

Contributor: Amie Davis 1- DECREASE INTRINSIC LOAD – “COMPLEXITY OF NEW INFORMATION”• Use a spiral curriculum where learners are introduced and re-introduced to increasingly complex … Continue reading Optimizing Cognitive Load for Learning and Efficiency →

Contributor: Jordan Wronzberg Administration burden contributes significantly to physician burnout. Residency affords an opportunity for learners to experiment with different ways to approach administrative tasks. … Continue reading Improved Office Efficiency- A Key to Reduce Burnout for our Residents and Ourselves →

Contributor: Cindy Donaldson What is it we most value in primary care?What is it in our provision of healthcare that we want to nurture?What is … Continue reading Words, Poems, and Poets: Identifying What Matters (To You!) in Primary Care →

Contributor: Alison Baker Field notes are written feedback after observation of a resident interaction with a patient, family member, clinical team member, or during discussions … Continue reading ASSESSMENT OF FAMILY MEDICINE RESIDENTS – FIELD NOTES →

Contributor: Michael Lee-Poy Introduction Quality Improvement (QI) frameworks offer a structured approach to enhancing healthcare processes and outcomes. They also provide an excellent opportunity for … Continue reading Leveraging Quality Improvement Frameworks for Personal Leadership Development →

Contributors: Dale Guenter and Catherine Tong Summary Do you have a mentor? We are guessing you could name a few, and they may not even … Continue reading Mentorship Basics: Offering and Receiving →

Contributor: Dr. Cindy Donaldson Summary: It has been proposed that “adaptive expertise” be incorporated as a key competency within the Medical Expert role (1). This … Continue reading Training for Adaptive Expertise →

Contributor: Dr. Henry Siu Summary: An undergraduate medical student first meets the concept of informed consent and substitute decision-making as part of the medical ethics … Continue reading Informed Consent – let’s ask the right persoN! →

Contributor: Dr. Catherine Tong

Contributor: Dr. Karthiha Raveenthiran Summary Learner evaluations of preceptors are used to obtain feedback and guide improvement. However, to be effective, these evaluations must prompt … Continue reading When students’ words hurt: 12 tips for helping faculty receive and respond constructively to student evaluations of teaching →

Contributor: Dr. Courtney Manser, MD, CCFP (PC) Take-Away Tidbits Almost all physicians have grieved the loss of a patient at one point in their career. … Continue reading Grieving the Loss of a Patient: Teaching Learners How to Cope with Death →

Contributor: Dr. Henry Siu Overdiagnosis means making people into patients unnecessarily1. Over-testing and investigations result in the overdiagnosis of diseases that were never going to … Continue reading Overdiagnosis – the hidden harm in our attempt to figure out what’s going on! →

Contributor: Dr. Joyce Zazulak  Summary: As we enter into a post pandemic era in medicine, telemedicine encounters have become part of our daily practice experience. … Continue reading Integrating Learners Into Telemedicine Encounters  →

Contributor: Dr. Courtney Field Summary: Comorbid patients, those with 2 or more chronic conditions, are increasingly common in primary care and often intimidating to learners.  … Continue reading Managing Patients with Comorbidities: Collect, Cluster, and Coordinate →

Contributor: Dr. Erin Gallagher Summary: When planning for the future, all decisions made by and for the patient should be guided by their values and … Continue reading A Palliative Approach in Your Family Practice – Part 4: Planning for the Future →

Contributor: Dr. Catherine Tong Summary: Blooms taxonomy is a tool that helps to both understand and inform the learning process. Millers pyramid provides a step-wise … Continue reading July 2023 Info-Morsel: Practical Education Theory →

Homeostenosis: A paradigm for understanding clinical vulnerability in aging adults in long-term care. June 2023 Contributors:  Dr. Henry Siu, with acknowledgements to Dr. Scott Nash … Continue reading A fresh faculty development offering! →

Contributor:  Dr. Dale Guenter Summary: A friend recently told me she had started a new contemplative practice. Every time the text alert sounded, she would … Continue reading Info-Morsel:  Bringing our presence to work (and then back home) →

Contributor: Cindy Donaldson Summary: This KeyLime podcast[1] addresses a paper reviewing the nature, triggers and effects of shame in medical residents[2]. Stories of residents were … Continue reading The Experience of Shame in Medical Education →

Contributor: Dr. Catherine Tong

Contributor: Dr. Keyna Bracken Summary “Many family physicians are burnt out, many are reducing their clinical hours, retiring early, or leaving the profession altogether. Fewer … Continue reading Health Care Crisis- FMCode Red →

Contributor: Karthiha Raveenthiran Summary:As a physician, especially in Family Medicine, curiosity is a key aspect to understanding patients’ unique illness experiences, building rapport and respectful … Continue reading Curiosity as a tool in medical supervision →

Contributors: Tejal Patel and Nirosha BalakuAR Summary: Microaggressions are common, everyday subtle words, actions or behaviours that communicate a bias against individuals or groups from … Continue reading Supporting Learners from Diverse Backgrounds – Recognizing and Addressing Microaggressions in Clinical Learning Environments →

Dr. Erin Gallagher Summary: Primary-level, whole-person symptom management can be tackled through: formal and informal education; collaboration with allied health and community services; clinical resources … Continue reading A Palliative Approach in Your Family Practice – Part 3: Whole-person Symptom Management →

SUMMARY: Quality Improvement (QI) is a core component of the Family Medicine residency training program.  A QI project is a mandatory component of their InQuiry … Continue reading Supporting Residents in QI (Dr. MIchael Lee-Poy) →

SUMMARY The skill of managing clinical uncertainty is fundamental to the practice of family medicine, and can be celebrated as a strength of our specialty. … Continue reading Uncertainty is our Specialty: Reflect on it, Teach it, Model it (Dr. Cindy Donaldson) →

SUMMARY Once patients who would benefit from a palliative approach are identified, what the family practice can offer can be broken down into 3 overlapping, … Continue reading A Palliative Approach in Your Family Practice – Part 2: Illness Understanding (Dr. Erin Gallagher) →

Summary “It’s on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way.” – Claude Monet Assessment in Family Medicine Residency training is guided … Continue reading Residency Assessment →

Summary Please see the whiteboard video link below (5.5 minutes). *A special thank you to Dr. Michael Lee-Poy and Dr. Carys Massarella for this wonderful and extremely … Continue reading Gender Affirming Care →

SUMMARY A palliative approach is when non-specialists adapt palliative care knowledge and expertise, integrate this knowledge into other systems and models of care, and apply … Continue reading A Palliative Approach in Your Family Practice: Part 1 – Early Identification →

Take Away Tidbits: The PEARLS framework helps a preceptor facilitate learning through reflection. This framework can be adapted for various clinical experiences. The PEARLS Healthcare … Continue reading Utilization of PEARLS Debriefing Tool following a clinical event →

Summary: Family physicians care for people from all walks of life. In a thoughtful study of primary care strategies to engage low-income patients, the first … Continue reading Teaching Learners to Care for Marginalized Patients →

Summary: Generalism as a philosophy of care is integral to Family Medicine. The “6 Cs” concept provides a framework to help Family Medicine physician preceptors … Continue reading The praxis of generalism in Family Medicine: Six concepts (6 Cs) to inform teaching →

Takeaway tidbits: 1. Reflect on our own culture and implicit biases prior to engaging our learners. 2. Use the questions for self-reflection as outlined in … Continue reading Learner-teacher discussion on Culture and Bias – a starting point →

Summary: Field notes are an important and effective way to document clear, timely, and actionable feedback to your resident and play an important role in … Continue reading The Field Note – a Formative Assessment Tool →

Summary: We have all had the experience of working with a learner who is struggling- particularly with clinical reasoning. In addition, we know that the … Continue reading TARGETED STRATEGIES TO REMEDIATE DIAGNOSTIC REASONING DEFICTS →

Summary:Residents described their decision-making processes to seek help as an act of performance, deciding when to seek help by considering four issues: 1) providing safe … Continue reading Residents’ decision-making process to seek help →

Summary: This session explores Covid-disrupted learning and the implications for transitioning to residency. Strategies for enhancing the clinical learning environment are presented, including a tool … Continue reading Transition to Residency in the Context of Covid-Disrupted Learning. →