Director appointed for new Centre for Educational Scholarship and Innovation

Dr. Lorelei Lingard has accepted the UPIF Professorship in Interprofessional Education and the position of Founding Director of the proposed Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry Centre for Educational Scholarship and Innovation. Dr. Lingard will be appointed in the Department of Medicine, with a cross- appointment in the Faculty of Education. She begins her new role as of August 22, 2009.

Dr. Lingard is one of the world's leading education researchers. She is currently Associate Professor in the Dept of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto, Scientist in the Wilson Centre for Research in Education, lead education scientist in the SickKids Learning Institute, and Senior Scientist in the SickKids Research Institute. She is the inaugural holder of the BMO Financial Group Professorship in Health Professions Education Research at the University Health Network.

Dr. Lingard received her PhD in Rhetoric from Simon Fraser University in 1998. Her research program investigates the nature of communication on interprofessional healthcare teams in a variety of clinical settings, including the operating room, the intensive care unit, the internal medicine ward, the adult rehabilitation unit, and the family health centre. She is particularly interested in how communication patterns influence patient safety, and how learning to talk in sanctioned ways shapes the professional identity of novices.

Dr. Lingard's research is funded by CIHR, SSHRC, Health Canada, MOHLTC, the RCPSC and other agencies. She has been the recipient of numerous awards for her research, including a Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator award (2003-2008).

It is anticipated that the proposal for the establishment of the SSMD Centre for Educational Scholarship and Innovation will be submitted to Senate this spring.

We are most grateful to Mark Goldszmidt and Elaine Zibrowski whose leadership of GAMES since its inception has laid the foundation for the proposed Centre, and who will work with Dr. Lingard and Dr. David Hollomby to complete the steps for university recognition of the Centre. We are also greatly indebted to the Department of Medicine and to David Hollomby, Chair/Chief of Medicine, for support for GAMES and the advancement of education scholarship at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry.

Please welcome Dr. Lorelei Lingard to Western and to Schulich Medicine & Dentistry.