Professional development key to answering today’s biggest health-care challenges

Denise Campbell-Scherer is associate dean in the Office of Lifelong Learning and Physician Learning Program.

“The hardest conviction to get into the mind of a beginner is that the education upon which he is engaged is not a college course, not a medical course, but a life course, for which the work of a few years under teachers is but a preparation.” 

That quote, from Canadian physician and widely considered father of modern medicine, Sir William Osler, is a favourite of Denise Campbell-Scherer, associate dean for the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry’s Office of Lifelong Learning and Physician Learning Program. It perfectly summarizes her passion and the central mission of her office—to support improved translation of medical research and health-care innovation to patient care, through continuous opportunities to supplement learning and broaden understanding. 

“Health-care professionals spend a relatively short period of time in formal training and there’s a flood of new information hitting constantly,” says Campbell-Scherer. “If you stop learning when your four years of medical school and subsequent residency are over, you’re not going to be able to take optimal care of people.”

“To evolve to provide the best patient care, we need to learn the best techniques so we can work together,” says Campbell-Scherer. That means not only exposure to the most current scientific information, but also an openness to other kinds of knowledge, including the realm of emotional intelligence, she explains. 

For Campbell-Scherer, professional development is all about creating a supportive community where faculty, staff, learners and physicians can come together and learn from each other’s unique skills and perspectives. It’s about building interdisciplinarity, with the ultimate goal of solving complex problems—from how to best care for an individual patient to how to encourage systemic change. By incorporating new ways of thinking and working, she adds, health-care professionals become better equipped to engage in the constructive discourse necessary to face those challenges.

Of particular interest to Campbell-Scherer currently is the integration of coaching skills into the working life of health-care professionals. From listening with intent to asking powerful questions, she stresses that such skills are key to better practise for physicians, instructors, preceptors and learners. “To effectively navigate the complex spaces we work in, we all need to be able to have effective conversations,” she says. “Coaching skills help us develop the skills, attitudes and beliefs needed to humbly engage with other people, bridge differences and understand together how to find a path forward and influence decision-making.” 

The pandemic has changed the way the Office of Lifelong Learning works, but it certainly hasn’t slowed them down. Over the past six months, there have been a significant number of successful virtual courses in areas such as coaching skills, COVID research and new guidelines in the treatment of patients with obesity. For Campbell-Scherer, pivoting such training to virtual delivery has put a spotlight on the need to use remote learning even after people are once again able to gather safely. “We need virtual offerings,” she says. “We should be there for everyone in the community, even when we’re not in the middle of a pandemic.”

To deepen our learning and broaden our perspectives, here are just a few of the virtual professional development offerings available this fall, both in the Office of Lifelong Learning and across the Faculty:

• Thursdays, Oct. 1 and 8, 6 p.m.: Anti-Racism in Medicine. Co-hosted by Nazia Sharfuddin and Kim Kelly, with keynote speaker education expert and education advocate Farha Shariff. Aimed at raising awareness of the systemic racism within medicine and discussing potential responses that foster equity and inclusion. Register here.

• The third annual Health Sciences Leadership Symposium—jointly offered by the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry and the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine—runs this Saturday, Oct. 3 from 8:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. online. Brenda Hemmelgarn, dean of the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, will deliver the keynote speech, addressing this year’s theme of “Empowerment through Resiliency.” Register here.

• Tuesday, Oct. 6, noon: How to expand your med-tech business in emerging markets. Hosted by TEC Edmonton with expert advice from global medical-technology consulting firm EMeRG. Find out more and register here.
  
  
• Thursday, Oct. 8, noon: Indigenization, Reconciliation and Decolonization in Science. First in a series of anti-racism discussions co-hosted by the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre. Speaker: Kim TallBear from the Faculty of Native Studies. Click here to join the Zoom chat.
  

• Monday, Oct. 19, noon-2 p.m.: Minds that Matter: Gairdner Symposium. Featuring Canada Gairdner International Award recipients Bruce Stillman (antibodies and their receptors) and Jeffrey Ravetch (Copying the genome in eukaryotic cells: mechanism, control and evolution of the initiation of DNA replication). Click here to learn more and register here.

• Wednesdays, Oct. 21-Dec. 16, 4:30-6 p.m.: Coaching out of the Box, hosted by the Office of Lifelong Learning. Training in focused listening, asking better questions, improving relationships, managing conflict and strengthening natural mentoring abilities. Learn more and register here. 

• Ongoing: Academic Impressions offers all U of A faculty and staff free unlimited access to a variety of resources in such areas as career advancement, EDI, resilience in leadership and how to support student success. Go to External Learning Providers to learn more and create an account.