Today, of all the conference so far, I have been inspired. A bus load (including Kathy B, Cathy H and myself) travelled 4+ hours north west from Thunder Bay to the small town (5500 people) of Sioux Lookout. This afternoon we were given a tour of the new (2010) hospital and returned in the evening for a night of cultural food and the history of the development of this inspiring place. The population in the region is 80% Native American. The history of the ‘first nation’ people is not unlike our own aboriginal people.

The hospital services an area the size of France with 25,000 people in small aboriginal communities many with only access by air. The development of the hospital and the service comes after a 20 year negotiated process to get agreement signed and a subsequent period of planning before the hospital was opened 2 years ago. The hospital design takes into account the spiritual beliefs of the local Indian population. This includes a separate ceremonial / healing place within the hospital. The service allows the use of traditional healing along side the hospital services. Food includes traditional food such as moose, local fish and other game (yumm).

We have been treated to sharing in and tasting the ceremonies, food and more importantly the stories of the people and the journey to create this place. This place shows that it is possible to journey from ‘them’ to ‘them and us’ to …. ‘us’. While this is an obvious exception it does show what can be done.

We return tomorrow morning before heading back to Thunder Bay in the afternoon.

Cheers
Graham

It is Day 4 of the conference, We had a plenary session about innovative models in medical education given by Drs Ted Epperly, Jill Konkin and Jill Downie. Dr Epperley talked about models of education deliery in postgraduate teaching then Dr Jill Konkin talked about Undergraduate teaching using the situated learning theory and community engagement. Dr Jill Downie talked about the establishment of Interprofessional learning models in health sciences.
My community visits today started with Fort William Historical Park where I had a two hour tour of the park. It is one of the largest living history attractions in North America, devoted to re-creating the days of the North West Company and the Canadian fur trade. Fort William Historical Park is recognized as one of the Top Ten Attractions in Canada and one of the world’s most impressive historic sites.
In the afternoon, I visited Sister Margaret Smith Centre for mental health and addictions. What I saw was very different to what I anticipated. The centre specializes in treating people with mental illness and addiction. It has a structured program for the residents including; gardening, art and craft activities, mindfullness exercises. We also watched a movie showing the struggles of some of the residents, The staff were very friendly and helpful, they even offered us pop corn while watching the movie.
Hanan Khalil

The theme of the plenay sessions today was about social accountability through sustainable partnerships. All three speakers talked about the theme in different context. Dr Charles Boens talked about NOSM as a good example of how an instituition can incorporate social accountability into its mandate. Dr Yarnold from Australia gave an excellent presentation about the efforts in improving Aboriginal Health issues in Australia and finally,Dr Doris Mitchell is an aboriginal woman from Canada, gave a very emotional speech about social accountability in medical education. She also talked about the history of aboriginal people in Canada. It certainly was the highlight of the conference for me so far!
Hanan

Judi and I presented an oral paper about community engagement for research as a model of multi-organisational approach….Just imagine giving a presentation with you Boss!!.. not an easy task..Having said that…We did very well and had received positive feedback about how clear our presentation was..A couple of questions were raised about the complexity of engaging with the community and doing research but we handled them well….One more presentation to go!
Hanan

Dr Bryan MacLeod and the Cambrian Improv Theatre Group managed to get the entire lunch time crowd in the ballroom up to participate in a series of improv theatre games to demonstrate how failing can be a hilarious way to try and then try again. Our acting skills were put to the test as well our improvisaion skills. I think I’ll stick to my ‘day job’.

PeArLs attended today included one which looked at attributes of medical programs which affect student resilience. What makes a resilient med student? Is it when they successfully deal with being located in a rural and remote setting and need to adapt to their new lifestyle in a more isolated environemnt than what they might be used to? Generally, rural medical programs ensure that students have better access to one-on-one mentoring, clinical supervision and (possibly) support networks.

What about the med student who has to do battle with 60-70 other med students in a busy metropolitan hospital in order to gain access to patients and who has to be self-directed in order to schedule small group tutorials. What mechanisms are in place to enable these students to remain resilient throughout their clinical undergraduate years? Food for thought…..

Laura Major

Wednesday night Rendez-Vous celebrated the coming together of conference participants from around the world which not only allowed for networking but paid recognition of organisations, professional affiliations and the community.

The evening started with a cocktail reception.

SRH staff donned their finery and enjoyed a meal and a drink and the chance to sit in one spot without having to check the time and making sure they were in the right venue.

Following a fine meal and a drink we polished off our dancing shoes and danced the night away to the wonderful group The Sensational Hot Rods. Several of the staff were in the last group to be escorted from the ballroom!

Elaine Evans
Gippsland Regional Clinical School

Dr. Bryan MacLeod delivered a hilarious afternoon session on “Becoming Socially Accountable by Sustainable Partnerships”. Bryan is a family physician in Thunder Bay. He gave a very entertaining lesson on learning to “fail well and laugh about it”. We broke out into groups and played games. We laughed for at least 75% of the one hour session and learnt to regain humanity through improv theatre. I must admit my acting skills were less then average, nonetheless, we had a fun time. Dr MacLeod, thank you, you’ve added minutes to my life by making me laugh so much.

Kendall Livingstone
Mildura Regional Clinical School

A major theme of the conference is social accountability and to have the opportunity to hear how the Northern Ontario School of Medicine has engaged with local communities to best meet their needs in providing medical education has been very interesting. A highlight today was listening to Dr. Doris Mitchell’s account of the history of the First Nation people, and appreciating how this paralleled the story of the Australian Indigenous people.
The conference offers huge opportunities for networking – both a chance to catch up with SRH colleagues and to hear about their research endeavours, an opportunity to hear international speakers and to showcase local work and establish networks of colleagues interested in further collaboration.
Cathy Haigh

Have managed to catch a horrid head cold so have spent the morning recovering from a dreadful night’s sleep and dosing myself up on Canadian cold remedies 🙁

Am hoping to feel better so I can attend some PeArLs and Oral Sessions this afternoon….

Laura Major

Day 2 at Rendez-Vous 2012 – I attended a couple of PeArLs this morning, including one delivered by Dr Gayle Roberton from Flinders Uni (who seem to be EVERYWHERE at the conference) and one from our very own Prof Geoff Solarsh. I was interested to hear others’ suggestions as to how distributed medical education programs can work best, eg. how do we ensure that students undertaking LICs obtain equivalent learning experiences to those that undertake rotational placements. The resounding sentiment that emerged from this PeArL was that we should celebrate the diversity that occurs when implementing the one curriculum in variable ways across our different sites. Do we need all things to be equal? Is equity actually a “furfie” by people who “don’t get it”?

UWA delivers a totally different learning experience in each one of their sites across a widely dispersed geographical area and students and teachers seem to embrace this and this model works very well in the west. In addition, UWA rural clinical school graduates are highly sought after by local hospitals as they are seen to be more practically ready for internship.

Rather than trying to make our unique learning experiences the same as those being undertaken by students in metro locations we need to: demonstrate that the programs we are offering ARE indeed different; demonstrate WHY students undertaking these programs will do better than their block rotational counter-parts; develop an understanding and appreciation within our students about a different way of learning; and perhaps let’s put in place a mechanism whereby students can share their experiences with each other, eg. an online feedback “blog”.

Lunch was a sit-down affair once more…am slowly watching the kilos piling on – followed by three plenary speakers: Dr Agnes Soucat, Director for Human Development for the African Development Bank based in Tunisia; Dr Elsie Kiguli-Malwadde, Director of the Medical Education Partnership Initiative Coordinating Center at the African Centre for Global Health and Social Transformation, based in Uganda; and Dr Gretchen Roedde, Family Physician and part of the Haileybury Family Health Team based in Haileybury, Ontario.

Each of these speakers provided some confronting statistics, particularly around challenges being faced in vulnerably communities and the shocking truth about the state of global maternal health. These are but just a few examples:
16 pregnant women die daily in Uganda;
The maternal mortality ratio has doubled in the last 10 years in Papua New Guinea; and
In every hour of every day, one woman dies related to pregnancy in Tanzania.

Oral sessions which I attended today centred around Student Experiences and Perspectives and included presentations from Harvard Medical School, the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine, University of Minnesota, Flinders University and the NOSM.

It was interesting to note that when character profiles of students opting for longitudinal integrated clerkships were looked at, the following traits emerged: students were self directed, novelty-seeking, reward dependent, persistent and cooperative.

Tonight it was time for some fine dining and dancing at the Gala Dinner and Dance held in the Ballroom at the Valhalla Inn. Once the formalities were over, a lovely meal was enjoyed by all and then we were entertained by “The Sensational Hot Rods” who perform great music from the 50’s era sung with perfect six piece doo wop harmonies. No one (not even our Head of School) could resist getting up for a dance. Prof David Campbell was also spotted in the distance dancing up a storm! Just as well there were a few doctors in the house – I spotted a couple of would be Elvis’ who looked like they may have needed some doctoring sooner rather than later…….

On to day 3 tomorrow……

Laura Major