The Patient and Community Partnership for Education (PCPE) at UBC Health and the Centre for Health Education Scholarship (CHES) in the Faculty of Medicine are pleased to invite applications for the new position of Canfield Distinguished Scholar in Patient Partnerships at UBC. The Canfield Scholar will support research, teaching, and outreach initiatives in patient partnerships in health professional education. The honorific has been established thanks to a generous donation from long-time educator, Carolyn Canfield.

Carolyn works as a citizen-patient advocate in BC, across Canada, and internationally to expand opportunities for patients, caregivers, and communities to partner with healthcare professionals to improve health services, systems, research, training, and governance. She is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Family Practice in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC—the first patient appointed to faculty at UBC without formal training in the health sciences.

Carolyn has contributed to health professional education and research at the university for more than a decade. At UBC Health, she worked with PCPE to move forward with recommendations in The Vancouver Statement (developed at an international conference in 2015) to involve patients in the education of health and social care professionals. She was a member of the UBC Health Council for four years and is currently a member of the steering committee for a PCPE project to enable UBC’s medical school to engage directly with members of the public and patients to fulfil their mandate for social accountability to define and address the priority health concerns of the populations they have a responsibility to serve.

To expand the impact of her work and augment UBC’s leadership and scholarship in the field of patient and community partnerships in healthcare, Carolyn made a donation to the Faculty of Medicine to establish the Canfield Distinguished Scholar in Patient Partnerships. The honorific will also strengthen the partnership between PCPE and CHES and further our understanding of how patients interacting with students early in their careers can support more compassionate, high-quality care.

Learn more about Carolyn’s contributions at UBC.

The application process for the Canfield Distinguished Scholar in Patient Partnerships is currently open to UBC faculty and closes on November 24, 2022. For more information, visit the CHES website.

Posted November 7, 2022