Family Doctor & Director MScCH (Health Practitioner Teacher Education) & Medical Education Fellowship | University of Toronto, Department of Family and Community Medicine

Dr. Abbas Ghavam-Rassoul is a family physician at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. His diverse clinical practice includes the care of patients with serious persistent mental illness and HIV. He is actively involved in several projects aimed at increasing collaboration between family medicine and psychiatry in service delivery and trainee education. His teaching has been recognized by awards at the clerkship, residency and faculty development levels. He has held multiple educational leadership roles from organizing clerkship electives to being postgraduate education program site director at St. Michael's from 2007-2013.

He is currently Program Director for the MScCH in Health Practitioner Teacher Education, Medical Education Fellowship and Clinical Teacher Certificate programs in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto.

Program Lead: Teaching and Learning in the Clinical Context (TLC), Stepping Stones Program

Amanda is Education Development Lead for Clinical Teaching and the Program lead for the CFDs Teaching and Learning in the Clinical Context (TLC) and Stepping Stones programs. Amanda Binns, PhD is a clinician research and educator in the field of Speech-Language Pathology. She is an Assistant Professor at University of Toronto, and clinical manager of a Student-Led Environment at Holland Bloorview. Her program of research extends from years of experience providing interprofessional supports for neurodivergent children and their families.

Arno K. Kumagai is Professor and Vice Chair for Education, Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. He also holds the F.M. Hill Chair in Humanism Education at Women’s College Hospital, University of Toronto, where he has a clinical practice focused on working with individuals with type 1 diabetes mellitus. Arno received his BA in Comparative Literature from U.C. Berkeley, and his MD from UCLA. He finished his Internal Medicine Residency, Endocrine Fellowship and postdoctoral training in the UCLA system and was on faculty at the University of Michigan Medical School from 1996 to 2016. He joined the University of Toronto’s Department of Medicine in 2016. Arno has an international reputation in medical education scholarship with a focus on health humanities, humanism, and teaching for social justice in medicine. He is also Assistant Editor for the journal Academic Medicine.

Asha Maharaj, MBA is the community and continuing education director at CAMH, guiding the development and delivery of continuing professional development (CPD) in the field of mental health and addiction for 10 years. Her approach to CPD involves a commitment to competency-based, interprofessional design and delivery of education that features the voices of family and patients with lived experiences. Asha is an active member of the Society for Academic Continuing Medical Education (SACME) supporting the mission and ongoing activities in her role as Chair, Research Projects and Awards Committee, Vice Chair of the Finance Committee and as a member of the Scholarship and Program Committees.  Asha has previously also chaired the Program Committee and led the planning and implementation for the 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting. 

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) Officer
Office of the Vice President Human Resources & Equity: Office of the Vice Provost Students
The University of Toronto                                                     

Ben Poynton, Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Officer, provides tremendous support to the University of Toronto’s senior leadership on Accessibility, EDI and Universal Design. He has been instrumental in advancing the university’s AODA commitments through the application of an intersectional lens and a community-based approach. Much of the great work Ben has led or coordinated can be found in our most recent 2022 AODA Annual Report. Moreover, Ben was a member of the Postsecondary Education Standards Development Committee that worked towards developing the new proposed postsecondary education standards.

Branka Agic, MD, PhD is an independent scientist with Education Research at CAMH. She is an assistant professor and the associate field director of the Master of Science in Community Health (MScHS): Addiction and Mental Health program at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. She is a member of the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Leaders and Directors group in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto. For more than two decades, Branka’s professional and academic work has focused on reducing inequities in mental health, quality of care and health outcomes. In recognition of her contributions to educational innovation, equity and inclusion, Branka received the Department of Psychiatry’s Fred Fallis Award in Online Learning (2014 and 2020) and the Ivan Silver Innovation Award (2019) as well as 2017 Innovation in Teaching Workman Arts Award for Mental Health Advocacy through Teaching.

Brett A. Diaz is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (CQuIPS). He completed his PhD in Applied Linguistics at Penn State in 2021, and a postdoctoral fellowship in health professions education research at Unity Health in 2023. His work centres on emotion in social phenomena, social aspects of health policy implementation, and praxis in health professions education. Most recently, he was Lead for Knowledge Mobilization Research and Learning Enrichment at CAMH, where he helped to create equity-based user centred processes and methods, and led research initiatives on improving trustworthiness in evidence-informed resources.

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto
Staff Psychiatrist, Borderline Personality Disorder Clinic, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)

In CAMH’s Borderline Personality Disorder Clinic, Carmen Wiebe offers individual therapy, group skills training and medication management within the Dialectical Behaviour Therapy programme. She coordinates University of Toronto psychiatry resident exposure to Dialectical Behaviour Therapy. She has taught across Canada on BPD and DBT, and has received national and international education awards. She has also been helping educators apply DBT communication strategies in educational settings.

CFD Program Faculty: Stepping Stones

Teaching and Learning in the Clinical Context

Clinical Educator for Medical Students and Residents, Scarborough Health Network

Academy Director, Scarborough Academy of Medicine, Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Dr Caroline Chan is the Academy Director of the Scarborough Academy of Medicine, Temerty Faculty of Medicine. Caroline is an emergency physician at Scarborough Health Network and is a clinical educator for medical students and residents. She has established a departmental faculty program in simulation through the development of curriculum, and leading cases. Caroline holds a Lecturer appointment at Temerty Faculty of Medicine. She has been recognised for her dedication and commitment to clinical education as well as quality improvement through several Awards in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto.