• Service changes to the Occupational Medicine and WSIB Clinic at St. Michael’sCongratulations Dr. Charlie Tan - Recipient of The Early Career Teaching Award and the Best Academic Half Day (AHD) Lecture Award
• REMINDER: Submit your 2024/2025 Annual Activity Reports – Active Staff Members
• Open call to participate in DoM Strategic Planning Workshops
• Mask fit testing required before August 31 for all St. Michael's physicians
• Changes to Piperacillin-Tazobactam dosing and method of administration across Unity Health
• Engagement Survey
• SMH Department of Med - 37th Annual - Higgins Day Resident Research Event – June 23, 2025

 

After careful review of our limited resources on core hospital services, Unity Health has made the difficult decision to close the Occupational Medicine and WSIB Clinic at St. Michael’s in December 2025.

Unity Health will support the WSIB as needed to explore options to relocate the programs. We will continue to work through current scheduled appointments, patient cases and plan for this transition.

Thank you to the Occupational Medicine and WSIB Clinic team at St. Michael’s for their dedication and passion they’ve brought to patients over the years. For any questions about these changes, please contact Jacqueline Chen, Senior Clinical Director.

 

A big congratulations to Dr. Charlie Tan for receiving two Infectious Diseases (ID) awards this year: the Early Career Teaching Award and the Best Academic Half Day (AHD) Lecture Award, as voted by the ID residents. These awards are a testament to Dr. Tan’s outstanding commitment to teaching and mentorship. The awards will be presented at the ID Resident Farewell on June 11 at the Faculty Club.

Well done, Charlie!

 

Due date:  September 1, 2025

Dear Colleagues,

The Department of Medicine is committed to ensuring your career satisfaction and success. With this goal in mind, and due to our size, all full time DoM members are requested to participate in a biennial Faculty Review, at a minimum. This meeting provides you the opportunity for formal discussion about what is and may not be working to achieve your goals, to ensure you are meeting the expectations of your job description from the point of view of your division, department and university, and to facilitate your continued career success.  Faculty members who are in their first 5 years of a faculty appointment will be met with annually. If you have a pressing need to meet or would like to meet annually, please reach out to the PIC office so that we can accommodate this. The priority is to ensure your needs are met and we will do whatever we can in the PIC office to help you achieve your career goals.  You are also encouraged to meet annually with your Division Head to review your career goals and activities.

If you are considering academic promotion to Associate or Full Professor, please reach out to the PIC office by June 1.  The university will hold a workshop virtually on June 25th, 2025, at 8:00 am for faculty interested in going forward for promotion on eligibility and preparing a candidate statement. Many factors go into this decision, which is highly individualized; important considerations include your scholarly activities and impact, teaching effectiveness or excellence, and time since last promotion.  You may also wish to discuss this with your Division Head and your DDD before June 1.

Please use the WebCV program to generate your annual activity report covering the period July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025 and forward it to both your Division Head and my office (email to Nilofer Ashraf, [email protected] ) by September 1^st, 2025.  Your Division Head and I will review this report. Dr. Moira Kapral also asks you to forward your report to your DDD and, for those of you within five years of your initial appointment, to your mentor as well.

The following are items that could be covered in our annual meeting:

1. Review of prior year highlights, challenges and goals for next year – anything more we can do to help you succeed (e.g., leadership training, continuing professional development)?
2. Wellness and work-life integration
3. Academic Position Description (APD): alignment with career goals; alignment of APD expectations re teaching (quantity, quality and levels of teaching), scholarship, clinical and administrative activities with your current activities
4. Mentorship:  quality of relationship; frequency of meetings
5. Career milestones (CFAR and junior or senior promotion); your 5 year goals
6. Professionalism & Citizenship, participation in hospital, divisional, departmental activities
7. Finances, Hospital policies
8. Hospital / University policies re conflict of interest, relationships with industry
9. Planned changes in clinical or academic activities (leaves, breaks and retirement plans)
10. Eligibility for awards & honours

The above list is long and not everything is relevant at every review. Please take some time to prepare for your review by reflecting on your achievements and your goals as well as thinking about your priorities for discussion and how I can help you with your goals and priorities.

As a reminder, you can access WebCV at: https://www.torontocv.ca/Default.aspx?pg=Login Information on using webcv can be found at https://deptmedicine.utoronto.ca/webcv The UT Department of Medicine has committed to continue to use and support webCV until a viable alternative is found and implemented. It will continue to be used for continuing faculty appointment review and promotion as well as annual activity reporting.

With best regards,

Natalie Wong, MD FRCPC

Interim Physician-in-Chief

 

About the DoM Strategic Planning Project
The DoM 5-Year Strategic Plan project aims to establish common goals and support for working together to achieve them, explore whether existing strategic priorities still resonate, establish new or amended strategic priorities as needed, update the Department’s mission and vision, and find the things that the DoM can collectively get excited about. The process aims to acknowledge that the landscape has changed and that the Department needs a strategic plan that addresses its current and anticipated needs, ensures learners, faculty, and staff have the opportunity to be truly heard, and is mindful of all of the competing pressures felt by the DoM community. In Phase I of the project, the team led by MASS LBP conducted eleven individual interviews with Department leaders and key stakeholders. Through these interviews, we have discovered common themes that we will explore deeper in our workshops.

DoM Strategic Planning Workshops
As part of Phase II of the DoM 5-Year Strategic Plan project, the team at MASS LBP is hosting seven interactive workshops with faculty, residents, and staff to develop and deepen a shared understanding of the Department’s strategic landscape and engage in focused discussions to identify critical actions for change and improvement. Each workshop is designed around one or more themes to encourage participation and robust discussion from specific groups and interests. These sessions will be guided conversations with about 15-20 others. The intention is to focus on solutions to the challenges raised in the first phase of our engagement. These sessions are your chance to influence the next strategic plan by suggesting potential actions it could include.

The Workshops:

Connection and Collaboration in the Department of Medicine
The DoM 5-Year Strategic Planning project is seeking to learn how to build better connections across the Department and its Divisions. This session will explore the challenges and pressures facing the workplace/practice/teaching environment and how the Department can work to address them. We’ll discuss what opportunities exist when the Department works harmoniously as a whole and what might deepen that kind of collaboration. Join us to share insights and shape future approaches to connection and coordination.

Date: Tuesday, June 17 - 8:30 - 9:30 am
Location: Online - Zoom
Open to faculty and staff
Register here

Department of Medicine Innovation & Sustainability
The DoM 5-Year Strategic Planning project is looking to gain insight and ideas on the financial sustainability of the Department within a growing and shifting landscape of academic medicine. This session will explore financial trends and pressures facing the Department, as well as the opportunities that innovation and entrepreneurship can bring. As more competitors enter the field of medical education in Toronto, we’ll consider what makes the Department stand out to donors, supporters, and high quality prospective learners and faculty. Join us to share insights and shape future approaches to Departmental sustainability.
 
Date: Tuesday, June 17 - 1:00 - 2:00 pm 
Location: Online - Zoom
Open to faculty, staff and learners
Register here

Department of Medicine: Supporting Our People - Valuing Faculty 
The DoM 5-Year Strategic Planning project wants to understand how the Department can provide meaningful leadership and support for its faculty. This session will explore how generational shifts and priorities, across all career stages, affect the future of the Department. Join us to share insights and shape future approaches to supporting faculty.
 
Date: Wednesday, June 18 - 4:00 - 5:00 pm
Location: Online - Zoom
Open to faculty
Register here

Health System Transformation and Innovation
The DoM 5-Year Strategic Planning project will benefit from a greater understanding of the long-term goals of the Department regarding innovation and health system transformation. This session will explore how the Department can play a bigger role as leaders to promote positive change in the health system. We’ll discuss opportunities to make strides to innovate clinical care, education, and research and the resources that need to be in place to support this work. Join us to share insights and shape future approaches to innovation and change.
 
Date: Thursday, June 19 - 4:00 - 5:00 pm
Location: Online - Zoom
Open to faculty and staff
Register here

Department of Medicine: Supporting Our People - Processes
The DoM 5-Year Strategic Planning project wants to understand how the Department can provide meaningful leadership and support for its faculty. This session will explore where institutional processes — like promotions, evaluations and CFAR — can be improved to achieve their goals while reducing administrative burden and raising the value of working in academic medicine. Join us to share insights and shape future approaches to some of the Department’s essential processes.
 
Date: Wednesday, June 25 - 1:00 - 2:00 pm
Location: Online - Zoom
Open to faculty and staff
Register here

Supporting Residents in the Department of Medicine
The DoM 5-Year Strategic Planning project needs to hear the perspectives of emerging physicians in order to ensure that the Department can learn, grow, and thrive in the future. This closed session, with no faculty in attendance, will offer an opportunity to consider what is top of mind for learners who are soon to be entering practice and how the Department can best support their priorities and needs. We will also explore the value of becoming an academic physician and what the Department could do to make this career path even more enticing. Join us to share insights and shape future approaches to supporting learners.
 
Food provided to those joining in-person!
Open to PGY3+ residents only. No faculty is invited to attend.
 
Date: Thursday, June 26 - 12:00 - 1:00 pm
Location: Hybrid: Department of Medicine Board Room at the C. David Naylor Building & Online - Zoom
Register here

This is a reminder that mask fit testing is currently underway at St. Michael’s as part of our biennial clinic. If you have not yet completed your fit test, please do so by August 31 to avoid a $30 charge for testing done outside of the clinic schedule.

Please refer to the schedule for available dates and times. No appointment is necessary—just drop by. Testing is being held on the 2nd floor, Bond Wing, inside Workplace Health, Safety and Wellness (WHSW).

If you have any questions or need assistance, feel free to contact us at [email protected].

Effective June 17, there will be changes to piperacillin-tazobactam dosing and method of administration across Unity Health.

The changes are as follows:

• New starts of piperacillin-tazobactam will be initiated with a first dose infused over 30 minutes. Similar to a “loading dose,” a shorter infusion ensures that blood levels of the antibiotic can be achieved rapidly. Please note that administration of piperacillin-tazobactam by extended infusion is already standard of practice at St. Joseph’s. 
• Subsequent doses of piperacillin-tazobactam will be administered as an extended infusion, with each dose infused over four hours, to maximize drug levels.
• Piperacillin-tazobactam orders will be updated in Epic to reflect the new dosing and method of administration. For most patients this will be 4.5 g IV Q8H infused over four hours for patients with normal renal function.
• The piperacillin-tazobactam IV manual monograph has been updated to support extended-infusion of piperacillin-tazobactam and will be searchable under “piperacillin-tazobactam” in the Resource Library.
• The IV pump library will be updated to accommodate extended-infusions of Piperacillin-tazobactam.

For more information about the reasoning behind these changes, please read this post on The Daily. More information is also available on this UnityNet page.

For any questions related to this change, please reach out to: Reem Haj or Beth Leung

 

Reminder if you haven’t already done so to complete the Engagement Survey.

The purpose of the survey is to collect feedback from physicians about their work experiences and obtain ideas for what matters most to people in driving engagement.

The survey will provide invaluable insights into the physicians’ level of engagement and fulfillment related to their job, leader, team and the organization.

Please take few minutes to complete it.

For more  information on the engagement survey:

https://unitynet.unity.local/2025/05/your-voice-matters-help-shape-our-future-2025-engagement-survey-now-open/

 

37^th Annual Higgins Day- St. Michael’s Hospital Department of Medicine

We are very pleased to inform you that we will be hosting Higgins Day, the St. Michael’s Hospital Department of Medicine annual resident research day, in-person this year on Monday, June 23, 2025 from 12:00 pm until 4:30 pm.  This will be a hybrid event (primarily in-person, with additional zoom participation).

Please see the event details below:

 

Resident Research Presentations

Date: Monday, June 23rd  2025

12:00pm – 4:00pm

Location: Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital

209 Victoria Street, 1st Floor, Room: 136

Toronto, Ontario

*Zoom Hybrid Option Available*

https://ca01web.zoom.us/j/62019491940?pwd=d1Z2MjTEjAPMKgNxOibVS3CSDvZUaK.1  

Keynote Speaker:

Andrew Advani, BSc MBChB(Hons) PhD FRCP(UK) FRCP(Edin) FASN

Interim Deputy Physician-in-Chief, St. Michael’s Hospital

Agenda:

Luncheon:  12:00 – 12:30pm

Welcome: 12:30pm

Keynote Talk: 12:35 – 12:55pm

Resident Research Presentations:  1:00 – 3:00pm

Annual Awards Announcement: 3:00 pm – 4:00pm

Please RSVP to the Luncheon here:

LINK