Welcome to my portfolio which follows my course work and reflections during my time taking Interprofessional Applied Practical Teaching and Learning in the Health Professions (INTAPT) through the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto.

I received my Doctor of Medicine in 2009 from the University of Toronto and completed my residency in Family Medicine through in Mississauga in 2011. Since completing my formal training I have spent the last four years essentially finding myself.  For those who are curious – I am still looking.  Unlike many of my peers who immediately began a traditional uban practice my professional endeavors have been extremely diverse as I pushed my boundaries to test my capabilities.  My clinical work has been split between urban family medicine (narrow scope, considerable resources), rural family medicine (vast scope, limited resources) and helping in the operating rooms.

Despite my constantly changing scope and location of practice, I have always reserved time for continuous commitment to medical education. Medical school is likely one of the most challenging and stressful periods during a physician’s life.  It is marked by the requirement of gain a vast sum knowledge while having minimal control over one’s time and environment.  The institution needs compassionate, caring and nurturing educators who can help guide learners through this time.  I do my best to live up to this ideal.

I was very fortunate to finish residency as the Mississauga Academy of Medicine was opening its door for its inaugural class.  This gave me a plethora of opportunities over my first several years of practice to teach.  Initially my sole focus was teaching the first year medical students basic clinical skills for half a day per week.  This involvement has rapidly grown through a combination of a series of events beyond my control.  This involvement was not my intent – it just sort of happened.    Now I have roles with the first and second year clinical skills courses (ASCM1 & ASCM2), the first year public health course (CPPH), the clerk self-reflection course (Portfolio) and more mentorship relationships than I can enumerate.  Walking across the university campus requires an additional twenty minute of time due to many conversations with students that ultimately occur along the way.

I hope the completion of INTAPT will allow me to incorporate more evidence and theory into my educational philosophy.  Even though I like to consider myself I good teacher – most of my methods have been learned through trial and error, feedback from students and emulating role models.  Hopefully by the end of this course I will have great understanding a variety of teaching methods available and some of the underpinning theories behind them.

Personal Teaching Philosophy

All students in INTAPT are required to fill out the teaching perspective inventory(TPI) to gain a better understanding of one’s beliefs, intentions and actions across the below five teaching domains.

Transmission –good teachers accurately transmit content matter to the student

Apprenticeship – good teachers are master practitioners, the skilled teacher disassembles their real actions in real life to provide comprehension

Developmental – good teachers challenge their students to develop complex and sophisticated cognitive structures for comprehending content

Nurturing – good teachers care about students and understand some have histories of failures, they challenge students to do their best in a climate of caring and trust

Social Reform – good teachers focus on the collective rather than the individual learner, the teacher believes that changes in society are the goal of education

I feel my TPI results accurately reflect my educational philosophy splitting my focus on Developmental and Nurturing.  When teaching clinical skills I tend to center less on the content and more on the reasoning and thought process behind the content.  My role as an educator is to aid in the integration and understanding of knowledge rather than the simple transmitter of facts.  I hope to facilitate the cognitive processes that are difficult to develop by reading texts and listening to lectures.  I want my learners to see patterns, solve puzzles and analyze data rather than memorize lists.  The Nurturing perspective corresponds to my strong belief in mentorship.  Medical school is frightening for many.  Beyond the vast quantities of knowledge to learn there is a myriad of challenges ranging from ethics to hierarchies to personalities that students must contend with. Medical education pushes learners in directions not conceived when they initially enrolled.  Teaching while providing caring, compassionate and understanding guidance is instrumental for honest dialogue and dealing with challenges efficiently.

Teaching Perspective Inventory:  http://www.teachingperspectives.com/tpi/