Educator Extraordinaire
Dr. Bertha Garcia’s scientific and curious mind, combined with her student-centred approach, has led her on a journey to becoming one of Canada’s most revered medical educators and leaders
By Jennifer Parraga, BA’93
At 13, Dr. Garcia started teaching children in some of Lima, Peru’s poorest neighbourhoods. This humanitarian act, which brought her to the slums of her hometown, became her first foray into teaching and helped define an incredible career. Now she is one of Canada’s most revered medical educators and clinician leaders, and unquestionably one of Schulich Medicine & Dentistry’s most beloved faculty members.
Throughout Dr. Garcia’s journey to becoming an award-winning, renowned educator, she’s remained hungry for more knowledge about educational processes, and become increasingly more passionate about teaching and mentorship. Above all, her curiosity has remained constant, as has her principle that, when in doubt, ask a student.
Dr. Garcia began testing the medical teaching waters as a young resident in Calgary and quickly realized the more she taught the more she loved it. When an opportunity offering more teaching came up at Western University, Dr. Garcia and her young family packed up and headed east.
Within a month of arriving at Western, Dr. Garcia was teaching pathology to dentistry students.
Comfortable and confident in the classroom, Dr. Garcia’s curiosity about how people learn and how best to deliver an engaging curriculum began to grow. She enrolled in a summer program focused on perspectives in teaching. It was here that she really began to understand that a good teacher is made and not born.
“After that week, I became much more aware of everything that I was doing in the classroom,” she said. “I also came to realize that there were a lot of good people around me who I could learn from.”
“I knew then, that I could not only just change the way I taught and interacted with students. I realized that I could influence curriculum, assessments and programs.”—Dr. Bertha Garcia
While she continued to learn from classroom experiences, Dr. Garcia also took advantage of an initiative by the Ontario government offering advanced degrees in education to physicians and completed her master’s degree in education.
Dr. Garcia says that after completing her master’s she realized she could do more; she could change the way things are done.
“I knew then, that I could not only just change the way I taught and interacted with students. I realized that I could influence curriculum, assessments and programs,” she said.
She began doing this through her roles as the Chair/Chief of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the School, a position she held for 10 years, and as the School’s Vice Dean of Education.
During the past nine years, the education program has achieved significant success under Dr. Garcia’s guidance. She is very proud of the launch of the Master of Public Health Program.
“A few years ago, Dr. Strong asked me and Jack Bend to develop the model and map out the feasibility of a master of public health program, which led to what we have today,” she said. “Now we have three years of graduates from this signature Program.”
She’s also very proud of the most recent accreditation process for the Doctor of Medicine (MD) Program and the work that has since ensued.
Dr. Garcia believes that the education teams at the School are the reason for all that success.
“I have a terrific team in medical education,” she said. “I think that my most significant contribution has been picking the right people for each of the portfolios. These leaders aren’t just administrators; they are scholars who are changing how students learn while being prolific in all areas of education research from admissions and student affairs to distributed education.”
It’s this optimistic spirit that Dr. Garcia has carried with her throughout her career – especially as a senior leader. She admits that it can be somewhat lonely as one of only a handful of female leaders, but it has definitely been an interesting learning experience.
Of all the achievements during her tenure as Vice Dean, Dr. Garcia is most proud of the ASPIRE award the MD Program received. The international award recognizes the School’s commitment to student engagement and the valuable role students play in shaping teaching and learning experiences within the MD Program.
Sponsored by the Association for Medical Education in Europe, Schulich Medicine & Dentistry is the only medical school in Canada to receive the award.
With much success, the past few years have also not been without challenges.
Dr. Garcia believes one of the most serious issues medical schools across the country are facing is the number of unmatched medicine graduates. The Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada reported that in 2017, there were 68 unmatched current year Canadian medicine graduates after the second iteration of the match. In 2009, the total number was 11. Dr. Garcia says that medical schools are working together on this, along with their associations, provincial ministries of health, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the College of Family Physicians of Canada.
“I’m optimistic that we’ll figure this out,” said Dr. Garcia. “For the first time there is a national effort to look at this, which is very positive. In the meantime, however, we have to determine how best to support our students, and look at alternate career paths for medical graduates.”
It’s this optimistic spirit that Dr. Garcia has carried with her throughout her career – especially as a senior leader. She admits that it can be somewhat lonely as one of only a handful of female leaders, but it has definitely been an interesting learning experience.
She’s grateful to her many mentors, most of whom have been men, who have always been supportive and provided advice.
“I remember advice I received when I was starting my career. It was a man who told me that you can’t be as good as the men; you have to better.”
While this can be tough to hear, she believes that those women who do move up through the ranks are truly extraordinary. And once they have become a leader, their opportunities only seem to increase.
Dr. Garcia finds herself serving as a mentor to many young women in medicine as she strives to enrich the diversity and strengthen the medical education program at the School.
Dr. Garcia’s term as Vice Dean of Education will end in 2017. And she’s ever more reflective on her greatest learnings from the past nine years. Of all the lessons learned, there is one that seems to have stood the test of time; when in doubt about a curriculum or policy change or even a leadership matter, ask a student.
“We can sit around a table and discuss an issue trying to fix a problem,” she said. “And we keep coming up short to find a practical solution. Then we’ll realize that we don’t have students included in the conversation; we have forgotten the very people who are central to the matter at hand.”
For Dr. Garcia, it’s a humbling experience, because more times than not, once the students join the conversation, the solution is close at hand.
“Students are an amazing fountain of information and knowledge,” she said.
Dr. Garcia is a firm believer in new beginnings and is mapping out the next phase of her career. On tap will be some writing and taking the Writing Master Class hosted by the Centre for Education Research & Innovation at the School. She’s also looking at engaging with more humanitarian work. And of course, she’ll keep teaching.
“I love what I do,” said Dr. Garcia.
“I look forward to coming to work every day. I don’t think I could ever stop teaching, and there are so many ways I can contribute to medical education and society that is not the traditional classroom. I’m definitely going to be looking for opportunities to do that.”
