"New Beginnings": ROMP's 9th Annual Spring Workshop

The Rural Ontario Medical Program hosted their 9^th Annual Spring Workshop at Hockley Valley Resort on March 25^th and March 26^th, 2009. After spending two consecutive years in Collingwood, the workshop was relocated to experience another beautiful location within the ROMP region. The weather was cool and damp, but the resort’s beauty shone through with gorgeous conference rooms and excellent accommodations. The workshop theme, “New Beginnings”, was chosen to emphasize the many changes that have occurred over the year in health care, health care education and ROMP. Typically, the ROMP Spring Workshop has been a three day event where physicians, education coordinators and recruitment and retention officers each attend a day of sessions geared specifically to their profession. This year, as a result of the changes to the Community Development Office Program, the Spring Workshop was reformatted to become a two day workshop with discussions on health care education for community physicians, Education Coordinators and University Coordinators. 

March 25^th was “Faculty Development” day and was attended by 49 delegates, primarily comprised of physicians, with several education coordinators also attending. Dr. Peter Wells, ROMP Executive Director, began the day with a warm welcome to all attendees and an introduction of the ROMP staff. Dr. Stuart Murdoch, a ROMP Regional Director and preceptor from Barrie, acted as moderator for the very successful day.

 

Many of the sessions focused on the changes within health care, including a discussion of the alternate pathways to registration with College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) for International Medical Graduates and an overview of the inaugural Physician Assistant Program at McMaster University. Other presentations taught how to adequately disclose information to patients during treatment, and presented recommendations from the College of Family Physicians of Canada’s working group on Curriculum Review in Family Medicine. Dr. Anne Jeffries from Mount Sinai Hospital presented a breakout session to demonstrate techniques for preceptors to effectively observe learners during clinical encounters. Dr. Dan Faulkner from the CPSO also hosted a breakout session to highlight the emerging roles of supervisors for internationally trained physicians who will be entering the health care system via the new Alternate Pathways.

 

The Annual Awards Dinner was preceded by an opportunity for social networking over cocktails and was followed by an informative wine tasting session! Registrants of both days were invited to the dinner, creating a total of 107 attendees at the delightful meal.  Once desert had been served, Dr. Brian Goldman, host of CBC’s White Coat Black Art radio show, began a humorous and insightful talk as the Workshop’s keynote speaker. Dr. Goldman outlined the concept of “Queue Jumping” within health care using voice clips of testimonies given by different health care workers from across the country discussing the idea and prevalence of granting priority access to treatment based on status, money and ‘who you know’. Dr. Goldman’s presentation was very highly praised and a pleasure to hear.

 

Following his address, Dr. Wells began the Awards Ceremony by presenting ROMP preceptor plaques to several preceptors. The Education Coordinator of the Year Award was presented to Barb van der Veen from Penetanquishene; the University Coordinator of the Year Award was presented to Darquise Lacroix, who works in the Undergraduate Electives Office at the University of Ottawa. This year’s Larkin Health Professional Education Award was presented to Bea Kenny of Port Colborne in recognition of her outstanding treatment of the medical students who arrive in Port Colborne for their rotations.

 

The Preceptor Awards were presented as follows:

 

Family Medicine Preceptor of the Year - Dr. Ozwaldo Ramirez, Alliston.

Specialty Medicine Preceptor of the Year - the Orillia Pediatric Teaching
Associates, including, Dr. Sarah Barker, Dr. Michelle Gordon, Dr. Alan Hudak, Dr. Robert Meeder and Dr. Gary Smith.

Family Medicine Preceptor of the Year – Dr. Kenneth Deichert

Specialty Medicine Preceptor of the Year – Obstetrical Group Practice of Newmarket, including Dr. David Rouselle, Dr. Anne Walsh, Dr. Peter Watt.

The New Preceptor of the Year was awarded to Dr. Paul Dick of Owen Sound.

 

The Education Coordinator workshop, on March 26^th, was attended by 50 Education and University Coordinators, as well as several physicians. Sharlene Plewman, ROMP Assistant Manager, welcomed the attendees, reintroduced the ROMP staff and acted as moderator for the day.   The sessions outlined the Physician Assistant Program at McMaster University, the collaboration and expansion of Distributed Medical Education within the ROMP region and reviewed the benefits of implementing inter-professional learning. Lindsey Rideout, ROMP Undergraduate Coordinator, hosted a breakout session that outlined ROMP’s role in arranging clinical rotations, while providing different ideas to Education Coordinators to create a warm welcome to learners when they arrive in the community. The alternate breakout session was presented by Dr. John Watts from the CPSO, who described the procedures followed by the College to register physicians trained in other Canadian Provinces and in the United States of America within the new Alternate Pathways. 

 

The final session was led by Jane Schnurr, Lifestyle and Leadership Coach from Awesome Coaching Enterprises. Ms. Schnurr demonstrated the need for a balanced lifestyle between work, relationships, health and other aspects of our lives that tend to either hold or elude our focus. She shared a few ideas for small changes that one can make to return balance to our lifestyles and put “Superwoman back in the comics”.

 

Overall the workshop was a great success! The hard work involved with planning the sessions, organizing the speakers and preparing the workshop material was obvious and as a result, the entire event ran smoothly. Next year’s workshop will relocate again to be surrounded by the beauty of yet another community within the ROMP region. We look forward to seeing you there!