Three teams of 鶹AV learners took centre stage to present their educational innovations at a recent event hosted by the Institute of Health Sciences Education (IHSE).
The panel on health sciences education (HSE) innovation, held as part of , shone a spotlight on three projects, two led by groups of medical students from Montreal and Campus Outaouais, and a third by a PhD student at the IHSE.
Taking inspiration from the famed TV show Dragon’s Den, the panel gave the learners an opportunity to showcase their projects and seek personalized feedback from a panel of four seasoned experts in HSE:
- Farhan Bhanji, MD, former Vice-Dean, Education at 鶹AV’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, and Associate Member at the IHSE
- Carlos Gomez-Garibello, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Faculty Member at the IHSE
- Jeffrey Wiseman, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Health Sciences Education, and Faculty Member at the IHSE
- Meredith Young, PhD, Associate Director, Research, and Associate Professor at the IHSE
Linda Snell, MD, MHPE, Professor of Medicine and Health Sciences Education at 鶹AV and Symposium Chair, moderated the panel. Laura Elbaz, MD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Associate Member of the IHSE, also played a key role in the design of the session and in selecting questions from the audience.
“The goals of the whole symposium include showcasing innovation in HSE to improve medical education outcomes, introducing the work of our emerging scholars – PhD students, medical students and residents – and providing opportunities for discussion and feedback on innovations and applications in medical education,” Dr. Snell explained. “Our junior colleagues’ enthusiastic and accomplished presentations and the dragons’ advice helped achieve these aims – and all the symposium participants benefitted.”
Valuable feedback from experts in the field
Saad Razzaq, a fourth-year medical student based in Montreal, presented the (MHCC). This competition invites teams of learners, mentored and led by staff physicians, to identify solutions to foundational issues during healthcare operations management. In 2023, the planning committee designed a case package, with significant contributions from experts in healthcare management and outcomes, to guide teams in solutions that improve care, management and flow of geriatric emergency medicine along with improving access to care for patients who left without being seen.
Speaking after the panel, Razzaq said: “This was a privileged position for my team to receive feedback from experts over a lengthy discussion around a program that I am passionate about.”
“All the feedback from the panelists was valuable and reassuring, given that we have already begun to implement many of these suggestions,” he added. “Those recommendations included submitting a manuscript to a peer-reviewed journal and implementing program evaluation suggestions.”
“The next steps for our project are to export the program to other schools of medicine and develop strategies to help implement solutions that emerge from MHCC into clinical practice,” said Razzaq.
Up next was Wassim Elmasry, a fourth-year medical student at Campus Outaouais. Elmasry represented ExploreMD, a student-led initiative that uses simulation-based learning to provide a hands-on, immersive experience for high school and CEGEP students in Outaouais. It aims to address several key concerns in healthcare, including increasing the number of physicians in the region and providing equity in access to medical education, while serving as a resource for young students to discover medical education.
Elmasry said that the ExploreMD team were “immensely pleased” to present their project at the symposium.
“The panellists, each an expert in their field, provided valuable feedback on our project, enabling us to improve and scale ExploreMD effectively,” he added.
The panel provided two memorable pieces of advice, he added. One suggestion was to support students beyond their initial experience of ExploreMD by offering a comprehensive mentorship program throughout their admission process. Another was to emphasize interdisciplinarity in healthcare by introducing participants to the collaborative nature of interactions between different health professionals.
Khoa Duong, MD, MPH, MScHPE, a PhD student at the IHSE, was the third presenter. He shared his team’s work on assessing the needs of LGBTQIA+ communities in health, healthcare and health professions education in Vietnam.
“From my experience, the IHSE has fostered a space of collegiality, multidisciplinary talents and a shared commitment to excellent and meaningful health sciences education research,” he said.
“I was amazed by the wisdom of the experts in the room,” he added, sharing that one of the panelists advised him to use a collective case study. “I had not known this method before the conference, but this method aligns very well with my study.”
Shortly after the panel, Dr. Duong learned that his project earned a grant from the Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund from the US Embassy in Vietnam. With this financial support, he hopes to establish a “team including medical learners, teachers and LGBTQIA+ community members to co-create an innovative curriculum or course design to integrate LGBTQIA+ health into health sciences education in Vietnam.”
Elizabeth Anne Kinsella, PhD, Director of the IHSE, said: “This innovative ‘Dragon’s Den’-style format was exciting to watch as participants ‘pitched’ their projects to experts, and walked away with new ideas about how to scale up or disseminate their work. The quality of presentations and the engagement of the panel and audience were beyond what we imagined. It was inspiring to see how these projects are already having real-world impact on health sciences education in Montreal, Campus Outaouais and Vietnam.”
Watch the full panel, including presentations and feedback, on the 鶹AV YouTube channel.
View a photo gallery of the panel on (by Owen Egan and Joni Dufour).