On October 24 and 25, the Department of Family Medicine hosted the 2024 Annual Retreat with the theme Celebrating 50 Years of Family Medicine at 海角社区. Held at the 海角社区 Faculty Club with over 120 participants, some of whom had traveled from regions as far as Val d鈥橭r, the event launched the Department鈥檚 50th anniversary campaign and brought together faculty members, researchers and staff to mark the big milestone.
As well as receiving accreditation from the Office for Continuing Professional Development for the educational program, for the first time ever, the retreat was also awarded a Silver Sustainable Event certification by the 海角社区 Office of Sustainability for implementing environmentally responsible practices, promoting diversity of programming and increasing accessibility.
The first plenary session was moderated by Dr. Marion Dove, current Chair of the Department and delivered by a panelist of three former Chairs (Dr. Howard Bergman, Dr. Martin Dawes and Dr. Louise Nasmith) who all spoke about their highlights, challenges as well as how the public narrative around Family Medicine has evolved over the years.
In the second part of the afternoon, participants were invited to attend a selection of workshops, all of which were highly participatory:
- Workshop 1: Teaching and Supervising Safely presented by Dr. Eileen Bridges, MD, the Canadian Medical Protective Association.
- Workshop 2: Leveraging your Emotions at Work presented by Dr. Tara Wilkie, MD, Psychologist and Social Emotional Intelligence Expert.
- Workshop 3: Going Beyond Understanding to the Implementation of Joyce鈥檚 Principle presented by Professors Alex McComber and Sarah Rourke, Ed.D., Department of Family Medicine, 海角社区.
- Workshop 4: Lessons from the Evaluation of a pre-consultation Online tool for Older Adults presented by Professor Nadia Sourial, PhD, Assistant Professor, Universit茅 de Montr茅al.
In the evening, a cocktail was held with Christian Pineau, MDCM, Vice-Dean, Academic Affairs, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS) who spoke about the Department鈥檚 legacy of enriching lives, forging long-term connections and creating healthy societies. Keeping with the celebratory theme for the 50th anniversary, the evening also consisted of a 鈥淕uess Who鈥� game displaying archived photos from the Department鈥檚 25th anniversary party. Prizes for the winners were books authored by several Department members.
The following day started with a plenary session titled The Valorization of Family Medicine which was presented by Dr. Emmanuelle Britton (Table nationale de concertation sur la valorisation de la m茅decine de famille) and Dr. Benoit Brodeur (F茅d茅ration des m茅decins omnipraticiens du Qu茅bec). They spoke about their overarching mission of increasing the number of active family physicians in Quebec and ensuring that their practice is stimulating and relevant within well-structured, high-performance care teams.
After the morning鈥檚 plenary session, there were more workshops on offer:
- Workshop 1: Innovations en mati猫re de recherche en m茅decine de famille presented by Dr. Maxine Dumas Pilon, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Family Medicine, 海角社区 and Professor Mylaine Breton, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Community Health Sciences, Universit茅 de Sherbooke.
- Workshop 2: Health-related Climate Issues and Self-care Interventions for Health presented by Dr. Claudel P茅trin-Desrosiers, MD, Head of planetary health, Department of Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine, Universit茅 de Montr茅al.
- Workshop 3: The Future of Teaching: Strategies to Support Active and Collaborative Learning presented by Adam Finkelstein, PhD, Associate Director, Learning Environments, Teaching and Learning Services, 海角社区.
The day concluded with a final panel discussion titled What's Next? Family Medicine in the Future presented by Emmanuelle Britton, Mylaine Breton, Claudel P茅trin-Desrosiers, Adam Finkelstein and moderated by Marion Dove. The session was highly engaging and covered a wide range of topics including research, health-related climate issues and teaching innovations.
Thank you to the retreat organizing committee, namely Marion Dove, Catherine Jarvis, Myl猫ne Arsenault, Kathleen Rice, Kennedy Kanyang鈥檕nda, Maria Morrison, Marie Moucarry, Dhabisha Kohilanathan, Ania Johnstone, Nina Schmauch and Maxime Pirenne, who put this event together. See you all again next year!
View our photo gallery below. Photos by Owen Egan and Joni Dufour.
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