Sep 12, 2018

Dr. Maryam Al-Rashid Reflects on her Experience as a Family Medicine Fellow

Grad Studies & Fellowships

Dr. Maryam Al-Rashid writes of her experience completing both the Medical Education Fellowship and Academic Fellowship Programs at the Department of Family and Community Medicine.

I am Maryam Al-Rashid and I am a family physician from Qatar. I received my Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MBSS) in 2005 from the University of Jordan in Amman, Jordan, and completed a four-year residency program in Family Medicine in Qatar in 2014.

Since joining the medical school and all through my medical career, I have been purely clinical physician dealing with patients and had no administrative role. Being always keen to develop my career, I decided to combine my clinical and academic tracks and enrolled in the Medical Education Fellowship and Academic Fellowship Programs at the Department of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM) at the University of Toronto. My trajectory with the two fellowships began in September 2016, and I graduated on June 30, 2018.

During these two years, I completed a total of 20 courses. The courses met my needs and aligned with my goals, as they leveraged my knowledge and skills and gave me the required foundations to start my academic career on a solid base. I created posters, delivered workshops and presentations produced a quality improvement project, learned about survey design and writing grant proposals, among many other useful projects.

Because of my fellowship in Canada, I am well prepared to become an educator, a scholar, a leader, and an administrator and not merely a clinical teacher. I highly recommend family physicians from any part of the world take the initiative to develop their career and the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto is the right place to do so. Students will find themselves in a rich academic environment with advanced evidence-based education, as well as highly knowledgeable and supportive instructors who provide knowledge and skills with care, compassion and respect. In addition, the administrative staff at the DFCM are welcoming and helpful.