I have now taught at the Mississauga Academy Medicine for over six years. Over this period my roles have grown exponentially. I started as a junior tutor teaching basic history taking and physical examination skills to first year medical students. Now I find myself at the tail end of a Master of Science in Community Health focusing on Health Practitioner Teacher Education and completed my one year term of Associate Director of ICE: Clinical Skills. I feel thankful I have been able to make an impact in all my primary areas of interest: clinical skills, LGBT health education, professional identity formation, and student remediation.

Learning medicine is challenging. It involves synthesizing concepts from a diverse range of fields and applying this knowledge to the clinical setting. Students are pulled in multiple directions and need guidance to grow from laymen to clinicians. I support students by making the implicit explicit. Whether learning the basics of history-taking or practicing for a CaRMS interview, I provide structures and theory to facilitate reflective practice and experiential learning. I help students deconstruct medicine into foundational components and use these components during every patient interaction. From the first day of medical school, I urge students to think like clinicians rather than learning through rote memorization.

Students need mentorship to develop their professional identities. The transition from a layman to a professional does not happen automatically. I am available for my learners. Since the launch of the EEE program, I have provided over 70 registered shadowing experiences to more than 50 first and second medical students, making me the most accessible EEE supervisor within the Faculty of Medicine. During these experiences I prepare my students for workplace and adult learning. This work was recognized by Dr. Novick inviting me to lecture the first-year medical school class about learning in the workplace. Given this session’s success, we added a second lecture preparing second year students for clerkship.

I believe students need to engage in research and scholarship to meet their career goals. When pursuing educational curriculum development, I purposefully create these opportunities. I had a group of over thirty students develop peer role plays to encourage deliberate practice of communication skills. Over the last three years I directed a team to develop an LGBTQ2S infographic describing sexual and gender diversity. My team has now presented our work at CCME and other international venues leading to our work being adopted by other medical schools.

Ongoing forward, my plans centre on transitioning from a clinician teacher to a clinician leader through future roles that may come to fruition. I have been encouraged to apply to new roles in the undergraduate medical education and I hope to continue to build in previous successes.