AM Workshops

Authors/Presenters: Susanna Fung, Jennifer McDonald, Mruna Shah

Description:

This interactive workshop provides a step-by-step guide to developing a clinical rotation in social accountability for first-year family medicine residents, drawing insights from the creation and implementation of the HEALS (Health Equity, Advocacy, Leadership, and Social Interventions) program at the Scarborough Health Network.

Participants will explore various strategies used to support residents in developing the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for providing socially accountable care. Additionally, the workshop will address methods to support preceptors in effectively leading this block, ensuring they are well-equipped to mentor residents.

Through engaging case studies, dynamic discussions, and collaborative activities, the workshop emphasizes the pivotal roles of resident interest and preceptor commitment as drivers of success. Key enablers, such as institutional support, community partnerships, and a flexible curriculum, will be discussed. Strategies to overcome common barriers, such as limited resources and resistance to change, will also be explored.

The session will showcase the HEALS program as a model, highlighting its development journey, challenges faced, and lessons learned. Attendees will leave with actionable tools, including a structured framework to design, implement, and sustain their own rotations. By equipping educators and program leaders with practical insights and resources, this workshop aims to inspire the integration of social accountability into medical training.

Authors/Presenters: Bruce Kwok, Leslie Rourke

Description:

The Rourke Baby Record (RBR) is a widely used knowledge mobilization tool that helps clinicians and parents/caregivers optimize the well-being of infants and young children. The RBR provides evidence-based recommendations and resources for preventive healthcare of children up to six years of age. The latest version was released in November 2024.

In this interactive workshop, we will explore how busy clinicians can better utilize the RBR with their paediatric visits. Discover new research that has contributed to updated recommendations in the realms of infant and child nutrition, injury prevention, development and more. Learn how to promote the concepts of early relational health with families to help foster the emotional connections between children and trusted adults.

By the end of this workshop, you will become more familiar with the updated tools and web resources associated with the RBR. You will learn to effectively counsel parents/caregivers and provide them with the most current and trusted information for their child.

Authors/Presenters: Nasreen Ramji, Sheila Wijayasinghe

Description:

Menopause is a significant life stage affecting up to 50% of primary care patients, yet many face barriers to timely, evidence-based care. Historically, menopause management has been limited to specialists, but access challenges—including long wait times, uninsured costs, and barriers to socio-culturally sensitive care — highlight the critical need for primary care providers (PCPs) to fill this gap.

PCPs, with their established trust and continuity of care, are uniquely positioned to address this need through:

Comprehensive risk assessment (e.g., cardiovascular, bone, and mental health).

Symptom management and shared decision-making (hormone and non-hormonal therapies).

Lifestyle coaching to optimize quality of life (exercise, sleep, and nutrition).

This workshop introduces a new, stepwise menopause care guide for PCPs, building on the success of Sherbourne Health’s Guidelines for Gender-Affirming Primary Care. Using the guide, participants will learn to deliver timely, equitable, and patient-centred menopause care through case-based scenarios, facilitated discussions, and interactive exercises.

The session aims to equip interprofessional attendees with practical tools to confidently manage menopause in their communities, addressing barriers such as language, cultural diversity, and socioeconomic factors. Attendee feedback will be integrated to refine the guide for broader implementation.

Authors/Presenters: Katherine Rouleau, Praseedha Janakiram

Description:

Building on over three decades of international collaboration to strengthen family medicine globally, and informed by more than ten years of family medicine development in Ethiopia, DFCM will be hosting a Starfield Summit in tandem with the DFCM conference. Fostering learning across countries and settings, the Summit will consider “how family medicine can enhance health system performance through each of the three components of the PHC approach”. As described by the World Health Organization, the three components of the PHC approach are high-quality primary care and essential public health functions at the core of integrated health services, empowered people and communities, and multisectoral policy and action on determinants of health.

The Summit will bring together experts and collaborators from DFCM, the broader University of Toronto community, WONCA, NAPCRG, WHO and PAHO, as well as representatives from various disciplines, clinicians, scholars and patients from high-, middle- and low-income countries.

Through a panel of global leaders, concrete examples from low-, middle and high-income countries, and guided small group discussions, this workshop aims to engage DFCM members beyond those attending the Summit to learn from, and to contribute to the Summit proceedings.

Authors/Presenters: Aisha Husain, Amita Dayal

Description:

Primary care is the cornerstone of healthcare system. Yet, systemic challenges are straining family physicians. These strains amplified during the pandemic and persist even today. For years, the College of Family Physicians of Canada put out calls to address these issues(CFPC, 2022). Is it enough to cultivate clinician well-being though? Unfortunately, these statement are not mitigating moral injury (Fullerton, 2024; Linder, 2024).One reason identified was that past attempts to decrease burnout have targeted individual-level solutions, which further fuel frustrations (Shanafelt, 2021).

Thriving healthcare workers is known to confer performance and retention, thereby increasing patient safety and quality of care(WHO, 2020). One of World Health Organization’s calls to action includes rediscovering meaning and purpose, which is rooted in Narrative-Based Medicine (NBM) principles(Charon, 2000). Moreover, NBM not only helps clinicians but patients too(Allan Peterkin, 2012; Lijoi & Tovar, 2020; Murphy John W, 2015).

At last year’s DFCM Conference, we presented an oral paper presentation to a full session. Since then, a three-hour workshop was piloted for our regional DFCM Clinical Faculty with 87% positive feedback post-workshop (n=6) and 100% satisfaction one-month post-workshop.

This interactive workshop introduces NBM and the robust evidence informing how these approaches enhance both physician well-being and patients. Participants will then be immersed in NBM practices, including close reading and examining art pieces. They will also engage in writing prompts and debrief about their experience. Participants will also generate ideas on how NBM could be employed in their practice setting.

Presenter: David Kaplan, Payal Agarwal, Mohamed Alarakhia

Description:

This interactive workshop aims to engage primary care clinicians in a collaborative discussion on how digital tools can enhance adherence to Ontario Health Quality Standards (QS) and the latest evidence for the diagnosis and management of health conditions. As Ontario's healthcare system increasingly turns to digital solutions—such as AI-assisted documentation tools—to alleviate the significant workflow burden on clinicians, there is a critical need to understand how these tools can support practice change to help enhance patient outcomes.

Using a health-human factors lens, the workshop will explore the needs of primary care clinicians in adopting new technologies that support clinical behaviour change. Participants will have the opportunity to provide their perspectives on the key barriers, facilitators, enablers and opportunities to the design and implementation of evidence-based digital solutions.

Through facilitated discussions and real-world case studies (e.g., Evidence2Practice Ontario), the workshop will uncover effective methods to influence clinician behaviour and better design and align evidence-based care digital solutions to enable optimized workflows, reduce cognitive load and enhance ease of use.

By the end of the workshop, participants will leave with actionable insights to support the evolution of digital tools for primary care. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of how to evaluate and adopt technologies that align with evidence-based care, optimize workflows, and address the unique challenges faced in primary care settings. This collaborative session aims to empower clinicians to become leaders that drive meaningful change by leveraging digital solutions to improve adherence to Ontario Health Quality Standards and ultimately enhance patient outcomes.

Authors: Serena Beber, Judtih Peranson

Description:

In 2015, the Department of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM) at the University of Toronto launched an innovative program to formally recognize, integrate, and support for non-physician Health Professional Educators (HPEs) contributing to medical education. A Community of Practice (CoP) was created as a faculty development strategy to facilitate networking, collaboration, and information sharing between HPEs and the DFCM.

A mixed methods approach, including an online survey and focus groups, evaluated the HPE program’s impact, successes, and identified opportunities for growth. The study aimed to 1) describe HPE CoP membership; 2) identify challenges and support needs of HPEs; 3) highlight the value of HPE engagement in CoP; and 4) inform future directions.

Findings revealed that HPEs value their academic roles, but often feel peripheral, describing their role as “the icing but not we’re not actually a component of the recipe”. Challenges to their role include lack of feedback on teaching, limited awareness of supports, and difficulty balancing clinical load with academic demands.

The study highlights the current success of the program and outlines potential next steps for its continued evolution. This program, the first of its kind in Canadian Academic Family medicine, demonstrates success in recognizing and supporting HPE contributions, providing a model for similar initiatives.

This workshop will review findings and provide a platform to share successes and innovative ideas from various sites. The aim is to further support and integrate HPEs in Family Medicine education, enhancing the learning experience and skills of residents.

Authors: Dana Arafeh, Dr. Melanie Henry, Dr. Noor Ramji, Mrs. Tricia Thomson, Mr Atif Zia and Mr Amadou Barry

Description:

Patients are experts through their diverse healthcare experiences and play a crucial role in shaping primary care. DFCM patient partners – patients at our teaching clinics – joined our department in June of 2022 and are experts on the primary care patient experience. Representing all teaching clinics, they've actively collaborated on various initiatives, crafting educational materials, guiding decisions connected to the patient experience survey, and have contributed to department decisions, including our strategic planning.

Our workshop spotlights patient partners' voices, to offer insights on what truly matters in the world of family medicine. We'll showcase their involvement in department activities, and shed light on how we can use patient stories to drive improvement in primary care. We will illustrate how patient stories can be used to support primary care teams to better understand a problem, inform improvement, and foster accountability back to our patients.

The session explores tailored strategies for healthcare professionals navigating burnout and resource constraints. Leveraging tools from the DFCM Patient Engagement Toolbox like the DFCM Patient Engagement Roadmap and compensation structure, we'll illustrate practical methods of engagement. We will also present topics of engagement identified by DFCM patient partners and faculty illustrating examples of areas of patient engagement in primary care. Through a reflective exercise, participants will apply these tools to their practice, bringing forth projects or queries.

Attendees depart with a robust toolkit, concrete examples of engaging patient partners, and practical insights, fully prepared to champion patient engagement in today's family medicine landscape.

Authors: Batya Grundland, Gurpreet Mand, Melissa Nutik, Nikki Woods

Description:

Education, Leadership and Scholarship are all key priorities within the Department of Family and Community Medicine. These three priorities often intersect for individuals within our department trying to engage in many of these domains at once. With more than 2000 faculty members spread over a large geographic area, it can be challenging for busy clinicians, educators, and scholars to find ways to start and persist with their education scholarship journey while simultaneously participating in leadership activities. Please join us for a panel discussion with a variety of clinician educators and education scientist leaders within our department to reflect on their ongoing journeys in leadership and education scholarship. This interactive discussion will explore facilitators, barriers, imposter syndrome and role model/mentors among other topics. The goal of the session is to provide practical support and guidance for those looking to further their own careers in this space.

Please visit the Oral Papers page for more information on the presentations during this session.

A Pro-active Team Based Approach to Re-engaging patients with DM2 in Care
Presenters: Doret Cheng, Sarah Nestico, Jessica Ferrara, Naomi Tadros, Farnoosh Fakoorziba, Anushi Sivarajah

Building Capacity for Integrated Healthcare: Nursing Education Initiatives in a Canadian Mental Health Setting.
Presenters: Sherida Chambers, Alfredo Ramirez

Implementation of Hepatitis C Screening and Management in an Addictions Outpatient Setting; A Multidisciplinary QI project.
Presenters: Renee Logan

Leveraging Behavioral Science to Develop Scalable Digital Interventions for Primary Care
Presenters: Nadia Minian

What Can AI Do for You? Improving the Primary Care Provider Experience Using an Artificial Intelligence Scribe
Presenters: Michael Taglione, Jeremy Chad

Please visit the Oral Papers page for more information on the presentations during this session.

Description and evaluation of a national humanitarian opioid poisoning education and naloxone distribution program
Presenters: Aaron Orkin, Bruna dos Santos, Alexandra Kubica, Anna Maria Subic, Nick Rondinelli, Ben Evans-Durán, Melina Hanna, Don Marentette, Joanna Muise, Kevin Paes, Meghan Riley, Samiya Bhuiya, Jeannene Crosby, Keely McBride, Joe Salter

Determinants of global antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in context of primary health care (PHC): Review of WHO-PHC Country-Case Study Compendium
Presenters: Anwar Parbtani, Adriana Di Stefano, Andrea Payne, Noemie Frenette, Althea Martin Vinjose, Erica Stukator Barbazza, Kate Stead, Katherine Rouleau

Needs assessment for implementation of anal precancer screening among people living with HIV according to health system stakeholders in Ontario
Presenters: Ann Burchell

No place like home: The impact of the House Calls home-based primary care model on ED visits, hospitalizations, and time aging in the community
Presenter: Elizabeth Niedra, Christa Sinclair Mills

Adaptive expertise in family medicine: exploring how practice context enables and constrains expertise
Presenters: Azza Eissa, Victoria Young, Stephanie Garies, Lisa Miller, Andrew Pinto