Frequently Asked Questions

Undergraduate medical education programs in Canada leading to the MD degree are accredited through the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools (CACMS). Every eight years, MD programs must conduct a full survey of resources, learning environment, curriculum, faculty, and student services to maintain accreditation.

To learn more about accreditation, visit the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine Accreditation Frequently Asked Questions page.

ProfZone is an excellent source of information for Faculty members participating in the Undergraduate Medical Education (UGME) Program. Among numerous other resources and tools, you can find:

• Diagram of the Curriculum
• Curriculum and Objectives (Calendars, Schedules, Objectives)
• Curriculum Interrogation Tool 
  The Curriculum Interrogation Tool allows you to display objectives mapped to a course, in both language streams, and search for specific objective numbers using keywords.
• The UGME Program uses One45 Logs to track the expectations by rotation. It is important for clinical faculty members responsible for supervising, teaching, or assessing medical students to be aware of the required clinical experiences.
• Policies and Procedures

Policies and procedures are fundamental guidelines to help you make decisions. The MD Program has grouped all applicable University, Faculty and MD Program policies and procedures under a single tab that is easily accessible on the University of Ottawa Undergraduate Medical Education’s homepage.

You may require a username and password to open some documents; faculty members can use their curriculum account information (CBL, One45, Elentra) to do so. Your password can be reset or synchronized through the uOttawa Medtech Manage passwords page.

The MD Program has grouped together faculty appointment policies and procedures under a single tab that is easily accessible on the University of Ottawa Undergraduate Medical Education’s homepage or through ProfZone under Resources.

Here is a summary of these policies and procedures:

• Procedures Manual for Academic Appointments: Introduces academic appointments and outlines the general principles, requirements, and procedures for appointing clinical faculty members.
• Policy and Procedures for Academic Review: Outlines the academic review process including eligibility for reappointment.
• Academic Review Form and Guidelines: Form to be used to conduct the review.
• Guidelines for Academic Promotion of Clinical Faculty: Criteria and process for academic promotion to the levels of Associate professor and Full Professor for clinical professors.
• APUO Collective Agreement: Members of the Association of Professors of the University of Ottawa (APUO) follow the APUO Collective Agreement.

You may require a username and password to open some documents; faculty members can use their curriculum account information (CBL, One45, Elentra) to do so. Your password can be reset or synchronized through the uOttawa Medtech Manage passwords page.

As a Faculty member, conflicts of interest can arise in different ways:

• When supervising or assessing a student during a clinical placement or an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE);
• In your dealings with industry or outside agencies; and
• When engaging in outside activities that interfere with the fulfillment of your obligations to the University.

The MD Program, Faculty of Medicine and University of Ottawa have established the following policies to support you in identifying a conflict of interest and how to address it:

• MD Program Policy on Conflict of Interest: Students cannot be supervised or assessed by a treating physician, a physician that has treated them in the past, a member of their immediate or extended family, or others close to the student who could compromise the objectivity of the student’s assessment.
• Faculty of Medicine Industry Relations Policy: A conflict of interest occurs when an individual has a significant financial, professional, or other personal consideration with Industry that may compromise, or have the potential to compromise or the appearance of compromising, their professional judgment or integrity. This policy establishes the principles that govern the interaction between the Faculty, its faculty members, staff, students, trainees and Industry representatives in order to assure that their interactions result in optimal benefit to clinical care, education and research, and maintenance of the public trust in health care.
• uOttawa Policy 70 – Conflict of Interest: The objective of this policy is to avoid conflicts of interest between the University and members of its staff, and to maintain sound and equitable relationships with its staff and with members of the business community.

One you have identified that a conflict of interest has arisen, you need to take immediate action and disclose the conflict. This can be done by completing a Confidential Disclosure of Conflict of Interest Form.

The University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine has identified the following diversity categories that apply to faculty members:

• Disability
• Francophone community
• Gender
• Indigenous community
• Racialized/visible minority
• Socio-economic

The Faculty of Medicine follows uOttawa Policies 67 and 67a. The Office of the Ombudsperson provides resources such as “Handling Complaints of Discrimination at the University of Ottawa”.

The Faculty is strongly committed to equity in all domains of membership (e.g., race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, mental or physical impairment, age, or illness). In fostering diversity, the reporting of discrimination is encouraged. 

The Faculty has also created an Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, led by assistant dean Dr. Ewurabena Simpson. Their mandate is to raise awareness, encourage sensitivity, and highlight pathways to improve equity issues in all aspects of medical school activity, including undergraduate and postgraduate education, research, faculty development, and the working environment for both faculty members and support staff.

The Faculty of Medicine is committed to providing a safe and positive learning environment for all learners, faculty, and staff.

The same high standards of professionalism are expected of all its members. All members are required to uphold the standards of ethical and professional behaviour consistent with the values of the University of Ottawa and with the values of the medical profession in the Code of Ethics of the Canadian Medical Association.

These standards are published in Policy on Professionalism under Faculty Affairs.

The Faculty of Medicine has no tolerance for mistreatment of any form. You may report an instance of unprofessionalism or mistreatment either as a witness, or as a person who was directly involved in the situation by completing an Incident Report.

The MD Program has based its   on the CanMEDS Framework:

• Medical Expert/Clinician
• Communicator
• Collaborator
• Professional
• Health Advocate
• Scholar
• Manager
• Person (The MD Program added Person, to promote wellness and career counselling)

The MD program objectives are objectives that ensure the medical student acquires the competency. For example, the program objective of: “demonstrate the ability to obtain a complete history and perform a physical examination on patients in all age groups” is required to meet the clinical competency.

Learning objectives are more in-depth and provide students with specific objectives associated to learning event. For example:

• learning objective #1127 (from Unit 1 cardiovascular section): Describe the advantages and limitations of each type of stress testing and explain the rationale for the performance of non-invasive testing.

All required rotation specific clinical encounters and procedural skills are listed on One45 Logs which is accessible on the Faculty’s Website through ProfZone.

In addition:

• Rotation Director Face to Face Meetings:  A Rotation Director may meet directly with teaching faculty to review program and rotation objectives, One45 Logs, teaching responsibilities, assessment, and expectations.
• Specific Rotation Print / Electronic Format Resources: Teaching Faculty receive information in print or electronic format specific to their rotation. These resources include the One45 Logs rotation specific list.

1. Write a new objective, edit, or remove a pre-existing objective (using track changes in Word).
2. Submit proposed changes to the Content Expert who oversees the content area for the objective.
3. Content Experts from both language streams review your submission.
4. Content Experts submit proposed changes to those to whom they report to in the curriculum (e.g., Unit Leader).
5. Proposed changes are sent to the Curriculum Content Review Committee (CCRC).
6. The CCRC reviews the objective changes for potential gaps/redundancies in the curriculum.

This is done through the dissemination of agendas and minutes of the Faculty’s major decision-making committees, through the ability of faculty members to attend the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee meetings, through Faculty of Medicine Annual General meetings, and through two newsletters (Faculty wide and MD program specific).

Faculty Council – Agenda & Minutes

Faculty Council makes recommendations and seeks the approval of the University Senate or Board of Governors concerning:

• Development of or modifications to programs of study
• Policies and procedures
• Requirements for medical student promotions
• Other recommendations it considers appropriate to further the progress of the Faculty

Review the agenda (available a week in advance of the meeting) and approach your Departmental Chair or any member to ensure they are aware of and can represent your opinions appropriately.

You may obtain a copy of the Agenda and/or Minutes of meetings from Martine Desaulniers.

Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UCC) – Agenda & Minutes

The mandate of UCC can be found on the UGME Executive Committees webpage, under Undergraduate Curriculum Content Review. Past monthly meeting agendas can also be found on that webpage under UCC Agenda.

Faculty members can approach any member of the Committee to ensure they are heard and properly represented.

Faculty members are welcome to propose changes to the curriculum through the committees that report to UCC or directly to UCC itself.

The UCC holds monthly open meetings during the academic year (September through May); the minutes are available to faculty members upon request (ugmedean@uottawa.ca).

Faculty of Medicine Forum: Annual General Meetings

The Executive Leadership Team presents updates on topics of importance in an informal, interactive setting. Dates of upcoming meetings are posted on MedPoint Newsletters.

Newsletters

The MedPoint Newsletter is an online source of Faculty-wide information and provides opportunity for Faculty members to suggest content.

MD Connexion is a newsletter which is distributed to all faculty who teach in the MD program (classroom teaching and bedside/clinical teaching).

All residents are made aware of MD student learning objectives prior to engaging in teaching activities through the following:

• Mandatory one-day orientation session (at the start of residency) which includes a session that covers MD program educational & learning objectives.
• Residents and fellows are required to complete a mandatory e-learning module entitled: “Teaching Medical Students: A Toolkit for Residents.”
• Residents and fellows have an action assigned to them via their One45 account to confirm that they have reviewed the rotation specific and overall objectives as well as required clinical encounters.
• Before each block, PGME sends a message to residents to remind them to review the MD program objectives and required clinical encounters.

All MD program students are required to complete the Tri-Council Policy Statement Course on Research Ethics (TCPS 2: CORE) which includes modules on:

• Ethics (including the consent process; fairness and equity in research participation; privacy and confidentiality)
• Governance of research ethics review
• Conflict of interest
• Multi-jurisdictional research
• Research involving the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people of Canada
• Qualitative research
• Clinical trials
• Human biological materials including materials related to human reproduction
• Human genetic research

All MD program students can also participate and learn about research (basic science, translational and clinical) through:

• Research electives: these are available both in the pre-clerkship and clerkship years.
• Clinical electives with clinician investigators.
• Research mentorship program (students paired with a research mentor or clinician investigator longitudinally from Year 1 to Year 4; enabling them to follow all phases of a project from conceptualization and hypothesis development to dissemination of results)
• Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) Speaker Series
• Department of Innovation in Medical Education (DIME) monthly rounds
• Editorial and authorship opportunities for the peer reviewed UOJM (University of Ottawa Journal of Medicine). 
• Participation in the research, authorship, and editorial methodology for scientific publication UOJM lecture series through the UOJM program.

The MD program has added a new metric on assessing cultural safety to all clinical evaluations under the professionalism section (using the wording “communicates well with members of other cultures/backgrounds”).

Cultural competency and health care disparities are also assessed in the SIM component of the curriculum.

In the event of an accident in a clinical setting, please ensure the student is aware they are required to do the following:

1. Alert their clinical instructor of the accident and seek first aid.
2. Go to the emergency department for assessment and treatment.
3. Complete the uOttawa incident form.
4. Advise the MD program liaison officer (UGME Administrative team contacts) and the Clinical Placement Risk Management Office (613-562-5800 ext. 3391).

Please be aware that every student has the obligation and the responsibility to complete the uOttawa incident form within 24 hours after an accident if:

• They suffer an injury (scalpel cut, needle prick, etc.) in a clinical setting or when the incident could have resulted in being injured because of a violation of the occupational health and safety standards.
• When the injury results in an absence from the clinical setting.