June 2008 Department Reports

Undergrad Report— J.Miklea

The clerkship schedule has been changed.  Beginning in September, family medicine clerks will be required to travel less.  All teaching sessions will take place within the first week with two fixed tutorials. The clerkship curriculum group is focusing on changing the evaluation and the exam.  

Unit Reports—SFHC

Stonechurch welcomes Karen Kiss, Receptionist, Team A.
 
The clinic has put together an emergency cart which contains a defibrillator etc.  This cart is located in the alcove on the Team A side.  Dr. Dave McCann and Sandy Lusk have been instrumental in putting this cart together and will be creating emergency binders for front reception staff.  Training will be made available to all staff at the unit and Dr. McCann will do a demonstration for all FHT staff at the September Full Department meeting.  If you have any suggestions or feedback please contact Dr. McCann (mccann@mcmaster.ca) or Sandy Lusk (lusks@hhsc.ca)
 

Postgrad Report—L.Shaw

Resident Research Day, was a success with over 130 residents and faculty in attendance.  Many thanks to those who took part.
 
Procedural Skills Day and the Welcome BBQ went well. 
 

Unit Reports—MFP

Mike Spoljar, RN‐EC has started a foot care clinic at the unit which is helping the unit decrease its negations.  A pilot project, INR Point of Care Clinic, has been started at the unit.  Patients attend a coappointment with the pharmacist and the RPN to review their medications and their INR.  
 
Dr. Zazulak is finishing her term as Interim Unit Director.  Many thanks for all of her hard work over the past several months.  Drs. Nancy Fowler and Lynda Redwood‐Campbell are embarking on their sabbaticals. 
 
The unit has recently hired a new billing clerk.  Many thanks to Laura Thorkildsen, billing clerk at SFHC, for her billing help in recent months.

Palliative Care—S.Winemaker

Drs. Samantha Winemaker and Bev Hattersley are looking after palliative care patients in a shared care model with the Stonechurch Family Health Centre and McMaster Family Practice. Drs. Winemaker and Hattersley are focusing on finding end of life patients within the practices at the unit and are making an effort to have palliative care patients return to the unit for continuity of care.  

Emergency Medicine Report — A Message from K.Sidhu

The Division of EM is in great shape.
 
The HHS and St Joes CTUʹs had over 500 months of supervision of Clerks, PGY 1 residents and EM residents. The EM clerkship continues to be highly rated and successful. We toped out at 148 Clerks completing their EM Rotation this past year.
 
The Faculty have increased their involvement with the UG Med, FM and BCT programs. We have added some 30 new faculty under the new Adjuncts Clinical professor category in sites such as Cambridge, Guelph, KW,  and St Catherines. Faculty have presented at Local, National and International EM and FM conferences.
 
This massive increase in activity was seen in the nearly 43% Jump in Educational Hours captured for this past year.  A great thanks to Terri Lyons and everyone who helped in this endeavor.
 
The Express Train is still speeding along, adding more passengers and a new crew.

• Indy Ghosh had great success in his first year as PD
• The EM program successfully graduated 6 Residents this year. 
• John Opie will take the controls as acting Division Director
• ME, Iʹm off at the next stop.

To everyone that has helped in the success of the Division, Thank you.

Quality in Family Practice—L.Hilts

The Quality In Family Practice Project is wrapping up Phase 3 with a report being sent to the Ministry of Health. The group’s recommendation is that the Quality program be established in Ontario.   A CQI approach can help to improve quality of care, increase team based care and improve interprofessional care that is happening within the units.

Emergency Medicine Residency Report—I.Ghosh

• Five graduates have successfully completed their training year and will be graduating at year end
• We have 7 incoming new residents in the new academic year
• Program had new innovative growth with formalization of “Tintinalli Rounds” which were incredibly popular and very well attended by residents and faculty, as well as the implementation of a Curriculum Committee.
• Residency Steering Committee continued and had valuable input towards education, resident selection and attitudes, and direction of the program
• Internal Review completed successfully:  feedback was residents were very happy and recognized the “above and beyond” work of much of the faculty in making their program a successful educational endeavour.  Challenges identified were potential faculty burnout and lack of funding for faculty, administrative assistant and  educational initiatives, and the problem of 6 month off site programs such as ROMP
• New successful accomplishments by faculty included presentation at the Interantional Conference of Emergency Medicine, publication in the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine as well as invitations to present at the upcoming Family Medicine Forum.  These will provide great exposure to the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University
• The program would like to thank Liz Shaw and David Price for their continued support Research Report—M.Howard