Inside "The Green Room"

| 25 February 2021

This month I’m going to dedicate my blog to highlighting some of the fantastic work that is done in our Public Health and Preventive Medicine (PHPM) program. This program is a great complement to our other training programs, and the links between public health and family medicine that come as a result supports so many aspects of our strategic plan.

This program has just been nominated for the 2021 PARO Residency Program Excellence Award, which recognizes programs that consistently provide an exceptionally positive and rewarding experience to their residents. Our PHPM program has flourished under the leadership of Dr. Kieran Moore, who serves as program director for this course in addition to serving as MoH for KFL&A Public Health. Ours is one of the most sought-after PHPM programs in Canada and has become a national leader in public health education, hosting the national review course that prepares PHPM residents for their Royal College exams.

The program is dedicated to continually improving, and engaging PHPM residents in continuous program improvement in the area of management competencies, as evidenced by PGY4 resident Dr. Golden Gao’s recent funding received through the Queen’s Fellowship in Educational Scholarship Program for his project, “Developing a resident-led strategic plan: A process for enhancing management competencies and continuous program improvement.”

They are clearly doing a great job engaging and supporting their trainees in all areas, including research, with PGY5 resident Dr. Azim Kasmani receiving the award for the best CIRN trainee oral presentation, Increasing Immunization Rates Amongst Grade 7 Students in Hastings and Prince Edward Counties.

Dr. Moore’s leadership in the area of Lyme disease research with the Canadian Lyme Disease Research Network and clinical management of Lyme disease has made him one of the most sought-after speakers in our Continuing Professional Development programs here at Queen’s.

Public health leadership and strong collaboration with all sectors, including primary care, is foundational for our PHPM program and underpins Dr. Moore’s approach to education, research, and public health practice. This has served us well locally during COVID-19, and the Toronto Star recently highlighted the fantastic work that has been done by Dr. Moore, the KFL&A Public Health team, and their partners in all aspects of response to the pandemic. Queen's Faculty of Health Sciences also published a glowing article, How Queen’s Public Health residents have helped fight COVID-19 in the KFL&A region.

In my own roles in primary care leadership related to COVID-19, I have had an opportunity to see how much our PHPM residents are contributing to the response and to cross paths with the many alumni and preceptors in our PHPM program who are also making major contributions to the provincial response in both local health units and provincial public health agencies.

Having this program as part of our department has other beneficial spillover effects. It brings a cohort of residents every year with a strong focus on population health and health equity, and links our other faculty with population health and public health expertise — links that support the work we do to advance social accountability and health equity. It also helps attract both full- and part-time faculty with interests in both PHPM and family medicine. People like Dr. Sarah Funnell, who has been leading contact tracing in Ottawa as an associate medical officer of health while also managing to work on vaccine hesitancy in Indigenous populations and serving as our Indigenous Health lead here in the department.

In closing, THANK YOU, to Dr. Moore, our PHPM residents, and all our PHPM program faculty for all you do. Public health and family medicine are natural partners, and we are privileged to have all of you as part of our Family Medicine family here at Queen’s.

Dr. Michael Green

Department Head Blog

Publish Date

Thu, 02/25/2021 - 15:41

Inside "The Green Room"

Inside "The Green Room"

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