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The Postgraduate program of the Department of Family Practice (DFP) is pleased to
announce the appointment of Dr. Diana Chang as Director, Enhanced Skills Program. She will assume leadership of the program beginning August 1, 2011.
Dr. Chang currently practices and teaches emergency medicine at St. Paul’s and Mount Saint Joseph Hospitals. She holds a joint appointment as a Clinical Associate Professor with the UBC Department of Family Practice and the recently formed UBC Department of Emergency Medicine (EM). From 2005 to 2010, Dr. Chang served as the program director for CCFP-EM, a year-long emergency medicine training course offered to third year residents through the department’s Enhanced Skills program. She has a special interest in medical education and frequently teaches workshops on airway management.
The Department looks forward to continuing to provide excellent third year residency postgraduate medical education under Dr. Chang’s guidance. Please join us in welcoming Dr. Chang into her new role with the Department of Family Practice.
May 24, 2011
Department bids farewell to retiring Clinical Professor Emeritus, Dr. Peter Newbery
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| Dr. Peter Newbery |
Members of the Department of Family Practice gathered at Tapestry at the UBC Point Grey Campus on Thursday, May 19, 2011 to show their appreciation and thanks for retiring RIII Enhanced Skills Program Director and Clinical Professor Emeritus, Dr. Peter Newbery.
Newbery was feted by several colleagues and staff members for his work, dedication, good humour and commitment. We wish Dr. Newbery the best in his retirement!
view slideshow of Dr. Newbery's retirement party
May 6, 2011
BC Government declares May 5, 2011 to be British Columbia Midwives' Day
The government of British Columbia declared May 5, 2011 "British Columbia Midwives' Day," joining more than 50 countries around the world in recognizing the important contribution of midwives in maternal and newborn healthcare.
Minister of Health Mike de Jong made the proclamation from the floor of the BC Legislature in Victoria, BC. Kelly Hayes, a practicing midwife and board member for the Midwives Association of BC, was present at the declaration and represented the province's midwives.
The proclamation recognized the role of midwives in providing full prenatal, birth and postnatal care to expectant mothers, as well as nutritional and practical support and advice for new mothers. In BC, midwives are highly trained, university-educated, publicly funded and regulated. Midwives in BC currently deliver over 10 per cent of the 40,000 babies born each year.
Read the full proclamation
May 2, 2011
Dr. Danièle Behn-Smith appointed Director, Aboriginal site, Postgraduate Residency Program
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The Postgraduate program of the Department of Family Practice (DFP) is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Danièle Behn-Smith as Director, Aboriginal residency training site. She will assume leadership of the site beginning June 20, 2011.
Dr. Behn-Smith is currently the Director of Education for the University of Alberta’s Indigenous Health Initiatives Program and is a member of the board for the Indigenous Physicians Association of Canada. She previously served as the Director for the Northeast Community Health Clinic training site in Edmonton and is a co-principal investigator with the Alberta Network Environments for Aboriginal Health Research. Dr. Behn-Smith is popularly known for her hosting role on “Medicine Woman,” a 13 episode television series exploring traditional healing practices from around the world.
The Department looks forward to continuing to provide excellent aboriginal postgraduate medical education under Dr. Behn-Smith’s guidance. Please join us in welcoming Dr. Behn-Smith to the Department of Family Practice.
Photo courtesy of Tribune Media Services, Inc.
April 6, 2011
Dr. Jatinder (Taj) Baidwan appointed Director, International Medical Graduates residency site, Postgraduate Residency Program
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The Postgraduate program of the Department of Family Practice (DFP) is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Jatinder (Taj) Baidwan as Director, International Medical Graduates residency training site. He will assume leadership of the site when current director Dr. Rod Andrew retires at the end of June, 2011.
Dr. Baidwan is currently practising as a full-time family physician in Victoria. He has been actively involved in the DFP’s Postgraduate Program as site faculty for curriculum in Victoria since 2009. He currently sits on the executive of the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) Medical Advisory Committee and is Chair of the VIHA South Island Long Term Care Medical Advisory Committee.
Congratulations to Dr. Baidwan on his appointment.
January 7, 2011
Dr. Jill Kernahan departs Postgraduate Program, joins Faculty of Medicine
Members of the Department, past and present, gathered together on Friday, January 7th to voice their appreciation for Dr. Jill Kernahan, Director, Family Practice Postgraduate Program.
Directors from many of the program’s training sites, along with several past faculty members, regaled the audience with stories of Dr. Kernahan’s leadership style, praising her for her intelligence, determination, no-nonsense problem solving skills. Drs. Paul Mackey and Greg Linton, site directors of the Peace-Liard and Northwest Terrace sites respectively, even performed a comic tribute song written in her honour.
Dr. Kernahan will continue to work with the Faculty of Medicine in her new appointment as Co-Associate Dean, Postgraduate Medical Education, along with Dr. Eric Webber.
View slideshow of farewell celebration here
October 20, 2010Dr. Garry Grams retires from Department of Family Practice
Dr. Garry Grams, Assistant Professor, recently retired from his teaching and clinical duties at the Department of Family Practice after a career spanning 28 years.
The Department hosted a retirement party in Dr. Grams' honour on Tuesday, October 5th at Sage Bistro at the UBC Point Grey Campus. Several of Dr. Grams' colleagues, including former Department Head Dr. Peter Grantham, lauded his contributions to the Department and remarked on the numerous ways in which Dr. Grams supported the development and expansion of the department.
View a slideshow of the retirement party
The Department wishes Dr. Grams the best for the future.
August 26, 2010 Department of Family Practice welcomes new Head, Dr. Martin Dawes
On June 1, 2010, Gavin Stuart, Dean, Faculty of Medicine, announced that the Dr. Martin Dawes, Professor, family physician and researcher, had accepted the appointment to become Head for the Department of Family Practice. Dawes’ term will begin on September 1, 2010 and will run to June 30, 2015. Dawes has strong interests in practice, research and administration, and will work with primary care providers and Health Authorities across the province to ensure that the Department’s education and research programs both serve and remain relevant to the health care needs of British Columbians.
Career
Dawes began his career in the UK, studying for his MD at the London Hospital in 1978. He completed a primary care-focused postgraduate education in Bath in 1983 and then moved to Oxford where he spent the next nine years in an office-based practice providing primary care and obstetric intra-partum care. In 1992, he completed his PhD based on studies of the effects of weight gain in pregnancy.
From that point on, Dawes began to focus on topics and issues at the cutting edge of primary care and family medicine research. He helped design an audit process for multiple primary care centres in Oxfordshire utilizing electronic medical record (EMR) data. He also he undertook a large multi-centre prospective study, examining the effectiveness of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring in predicting mortality. He has collaborated with other researchers to produce and evaluate guidelines looking at colorectal cancer screening, abdominal pain and hypertension. Dawes current research interests include information retrieval, hypertension, and pharmacogenomics in primary care. He is an active participant with six funded research projects and is the Principal Investigator on a seventh funded study.
In addition to his research and practice interests, Dawes has considerable expertise and passion for the development of training programs that allow clinicians to engage in Masters level research. He collaborated with colleagues David Sackette and Philip Davis in the creation of a multi-disciplinary Masters program in Evidence-based Health Care at the University of Oxford. More recently, he has developed both an International Master’s program in Health Leadership and overseen the creation of a thesis-oriented Master of Family Medicine at McGill University. Says Dawes: “We need more clinicians to have research skills. The most important questions we face in primary care are different from those faced by hospital physicians.” He points out that hospital-based research, while valuable, is often derived from cases that present extreme symptoms and thus are not always applicable to patients within office-based practices.
In 2000, Dawes was appointed Director for the Centre for Evidence-based Health Care at the University of Oxford, where he remained before becoming Chair of the Department of Family Medicine at McGill University in Montreal in 2002. He is the current Chair of the Scientific Program Committee for the North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) and is a member of the Canadian Hypertension Education Programme. He works with C-Change, a group whose objective is to harmonise national Canadian guidelines.
Vision for the Department
In a document submitted to the Search Committee during the search process, Dawes outlined his vision for the Department of Family Practice. He is committed to working with communities of practice to deliver and apply the results of primary care research into office practices where it can benefit patients most. “We need the practices, the whole team, not just the doctor, to be interested in answering questions that directly affect primary health care delivery” notes Dawes, “If we can develop a much closer relationship with the family physician offices in BC then they will help us drive [the] agenda for improved quality [of care] far more effectively than [the Department] can. By working closely with the government at the same time we can ensure a better chance of appropriate funding for primary care including the academic activities. By working with other departments within the faculty we also will improve the chances of successfully achieving these goals.”
In addition to promoting the integration of family medicine research into office practices, Dr. Dawes will also be focusing on training clinicians to acquire advanced research skills. “One of my of my priorities is to work with the university and the government to enable [family physicians] to address this training gap with the development of a family medicine research thesis Masters and PhD program. In addition we need a clearer academic track for these professionals who practice clinically but also want to undertake research.”
Paralleling the academic training track, Dr. Dawes would also like to enable family physicians to create a peer-supported learning community that would allow clinicians to educate themselves about how to achieving higher quality care in their practices. He notes that it only through discussions with peers that physicians can truly understand how to improve their individual practice. By confidentially sharing information on practice processes and outcomes to facilitate learning, family physicians can create a community that is willing to help each other achieve higher quality care.
August 3, 2010 DFP renames Divisions as Special Interest Focus Programs (SIFPs)
The Department of Family Practice, after extensive review and consultation with Division leadership, has decided to rename the divisions. The eight “sub-groups” of family practice overseen by the Department will now be referred to as “Special Interest Focus Programs” or SIFPs.
This decision reflects recent changes made by the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) to develop a section that allows family physicians with an expertise in a specific area and/or practice of family medicine to undertake professional development programs, influence undergraduate and postgraduate curricula, and potentially develop third-year enhanced skills programs.
Faculty, staff, residents and students from the eight existing SIFPs within the Department of Family Practice have long contributed to the success of family medicine education, research and service in British Columbia. These groups will continue to play a critical role in:
- developing clinical skills in DFP learners
- developing leaders for practice, education and research
- creating environments for intra-professional and inter-professional learning and research
- strengthening and establishing partnerships within the Faculty of Medicine and the university
The Department of Family Practice currently has eight SIFPs: Aboriginal People’s Health, Community Geriatrics, Collaborating Centre for Prison Health and Education, Global Health, Inner City Medicine, Maternal Health, Palliative Care and Sports Medicine. To learn more about each SIFP, visit their individual web sites, which may be accessed from www.familymed.ubc.ca
July 2, 2010
Dr. Abraham (Braam) de Klerk appointed to the Order of Canada
Family physician and Clinical Assistant Professor, Abraham (Braam) de Klerk, has been appointed to the Order of Canada in 2010.
The Governor General's office states that Dr. de Klerk is being recognized for "his contributions to health care as a physician, teacher and administrator." His continued advocacy for the needs of rural and remote populations in Canada's North also contributed to his successful nomination as a Member of the Order.
Dr. de Klerk is the Medical Director of the Inuvik, NWT teaching site. He has served as faculty for the Rural Postgrad Residency site for several years, training students from UBC, Canada, New Zealand and Argentina.
To learn more about Dr. de Klerk's teaching experiences, visit his blog http://polardoc.typepad.com
June 1, 2010
Dr. Martin Dawes appointed new Head, Department of Family Practice
The Faculty of Medicine announced today that Dr. Martin Dawes, formerly Head of the Department of Family Practice at McGill University, was appointed Head of the UBC Department of Family Practice.
Dr. Dawes will step into the role September 1, 2010. His appointment will be held for five years to June 30, 2015.
As Head of the Department, Dr. Dawes will work with primary care providers and Health Authorities across the province to ensure the programs of education and research with the Department are aligned to the health care needs of the population of British Columbia.
Read Dr. Dawes' biography here
March 8, 2010
Department of Family Practice and Institute for Aboriginal Health to pilot workplace garden project in Strangway building
UBC’s Healthy Workplace Initiatives Program recently awarded the Department of Family Practice (DFP) and the Institute of Aboriginal Health (IAH), with funding to conduct a year-long project examining the impact of workplace medicinal gardens on employee health and wellness.
This innovative project will involve designing, planting and harvesting several container gardens of traditional medicinal plants and herbs in and around the administrative offices of the DFP, located on the third floor of the David Strangway building at UBC’s Point Grey campus. Container gardens will also be planted at the offices of the IAH. Faculty and staff will be encouraged to use the crops from these gardens to make teas, compresses and herbal mixes, among other items.
“The goal of this study is to inspire participants to be more proactive in their self-care, and to consider the potential influence of different cultural strategies, such as medicinal plants, on their health and wellness,” says Dr. Christie Newton, co-lead of the medicinal gardens project team. The project will evaluate the potential impact of the workplace medicinal gardens on the attitudes, awareness and behaviours of employees towards self-care.
Department faculty and staff will be contributing to the design, implementation and evaluation of this project. Staff and faculty will also be asked to organize and participate in several workshops to share knowledge about traditional plants and also to promote the the concept of workplace gardening as a tool for improving workplace health and well-being to other UBC groups as well as the broader community.
To learn more about this project or to become involved in the planning of the medicinal gardens, contact Dr. Lee Brown at flbrown@interchange.ubc.ca or Debra Hanberg at debra.hanberg@familymed.ubc.ca.
The Department would like to acknowledge UBC Farms and UBC Botanical Gardens, community partners in the medicinal workplace gardens project
UBC’s Healthy Workplace Initiative Program: www.hse.ubc.ca/healthpromotion/initiatives/healthyworkplaceinitiatives.html
March 3, 2010 
Dr. Christie Newton hired as new Director, Continuing Professional Development and Community Partnerships
Congratulations to Dr. Christie Newton on her appointment as the Department of Family Practice’s (DFP) new Director, Continuing Professional Development and Community Partnerships. In her new part-time role, Dr. Newton will be liaising with both internal and external groups tofacilitate faculty development and continuing professional development and education. She will also be developing strategic partnerships with key community organizations and will work to ensure that the education and research mandates of the department is considered in all relevant discussions. Where appropriate, Dr. Newton will assist and support DFP leadership in primary care renewal activities throughout the province.
Click here for 2009 News Archive