Educational Activities

Queen’s Psychiatry residency program provides unique opportunities for learners at all stages to develop the capacity to be teachers and medical educators. While all residents will have ample opportunities to teach, for those with a strong interest in medical education, opportunities can be created for more robust lecturing roles, research initiatives, as well as curriculum development.

The following is not an exhaustive list but will provide you with some highlights of opportunities for teaching at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Undergraduate Medical Education (UGME)

Preclerkship (Year 1 and 2)

• Supervised whole class lectures-senior residents are supervised by faculty in planning and delivering lectures on select topics annually during the Psychiatry course
• Supervising Expanded Clinical Skills sessions- junior and senior residents observe second year medical students taking a psychiatric history from standardized patients in small group learning format and provide feedback as well as grade mock consultation/clinic report
• Participating in the annual “Psychiatry extravaganza” – residents interview a standardized patient with a common psychiatric presentation while being observed by first year medical students and debrief the encounter with the students
• Developing learning modules/material-residents develop learning material such as case based online modules; formative evaluations; small group learning material etc. under the supervision of the Psychiatry course director for use in the undergraduate Psychiatry course. This can be done as a longitudinal project or as a senior elective project.

Clerkship (Year 3 and 4) – clinical clerks interact with residents both on-call and on clinic placements

• Observation of clinical clerk interviews with feedback given, and completion of a MiniCEX form
• Impromptu teaching around cases
• Small group interactive seminars on Monday afternoons – variety of topics and opportunity for senior residents to provide consistent teaching to clerks rotating through psychiatry as core placement as well as curriculum development
• Supervised larger lecture-style teaching as part of the review of psychiatry for the graduating medical school class – students are involved in both the planning and delivery of this lecture

If you are interested in getting further information on any of the above opportunities – please contact:

Directors of Psychiatry Undergraduate Education:  

Pre-Clerkship - Dr. Nisha Wijeratne (N.Wijeratne@kingstonhsc.ca) 

Clerkship - Dr. Debra Hamer (dmh6@queensu.ca)

Directors of Psychiatry Postgraduate Education:

Matt Tobin (tobinm@providencecare.ca)

Education coordinator - Kevin O'Neil (oneilk@providencecare.ca)

Overview:

We are transitioning to a Competence-Based Medical Education (CMBE) model for postgraduate education (residency) at Queen’s. As of July 1, 2019, PGYs 1 – 4 will be using this model.

Faculty development in CBME includes CBME Grand Rounds each June, as well as brief videos and other tips sent via email, which we’d encourage you to open and view. We’d encourage you to view past videos here.

Briefly, CMBE means that residents will be triggering frequent brief assessments for faculty to complete at the point of patient encounters rather than simply getting assessed at the end of a rotation using a “report card” (traditionally called an ITER). The new brief assessment forms can be completed on a mobile device using a PIN or can be sent to your email account. They are easy and quick to complete, and should help the resident improve rather than simply summarizing their rotation like a traditional ITER used to.

Teaching Opportunities:

Supervising residents in your clinic or inpatient unit. Having residents participate in your day-to-day clinical practice can be satisfying. Responsibility and expectations should be tailored to the resident’s education level. Please familiarize yourself with the Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs), which are the objectives that are specific to each residency level. These are the skills and attitudes the resident needs to gain competence in.

Also, the resident may bring a “Learning Plan” to the rotation. This is simply some specifics that he/she needs to focus on.

Facilitating a resident’s journal club presentation. Journal Club happens monthly. When a resident chooses an article to present and appraise, she/he will usually approach a faculty member with an interest in the article’s topic to support and guide them. This includes attending the lunchtime journal club. 

Academic Half-Day Teaching. The residents have a protected academic half-day each Wednesday afternoon. Drs. Wijeratne and Hussain organize the teaching schedule. This is not usually didactic lecturing but is a “Problem-Based Curriculum” with a lot of participation from the residents present. Faculty still takes a major role in organizing and running these sessions that ultimately cover the whole postgraduate psychiatry curriculum. Tips on how to use the problem-based model are available from the organizers.

Interviewing skills and OSCE practice are also scheduled during the academic half-days. Faculty facilitates these as well.

Psychotherapy Supervision. Dr. Margo Rivera is the Director of Psychotherapy. We have a list of faculty who supervise individual residents in various modalities – CBT, IPT, psychodynamic, etc. Supervision includes assessing a patient’s suitability with the resident as well as reviewing recordings or notes of sessions with the resident regularly. If you have expertise in one or more modalities, please contact Dr. Rivera.

Supervising Research.  Residents interested in research may choose to be in a stream where multiple projects are possible. Residents who don’t necessarily picture an academic career may choose the less research-intensive stream, but still learn critical appraisal skills and do a smaller project. All residents benefit from guidance and supervisions from individual faculty members as they formulate questions, prepare literature reviews, and organize papers and posters.