Congratulations Dr. Brewer-Deluce, 2024 Faculty of Health Sciences Education Scholarship Fund Winner!

Dr. Brewer-Deluce, PhD, won the 2024 Faculty of Health Sciences Education Scholarship Fund from MERIT.  Totalling $25 000, this grant promotes and recognizes research and educational innovation in health sciences. With these funds, Dr. Brewer-Deluce will continue her anatomy education research program investigating the influence of anatomical model features (i.e., size, color, shape) on learning. Given that anatomy is a fundamental course for many trainees across the allied health sciences, and that anatomical models are a staple in laboratory-based education, a better understanding of which aspects of these models help or hamper learning will enable the development of new evidence-based teaching approaches for novice learners.

Together, Dr. Darren de SA (MD, Dept of Surgery) and Dr. Danielle Brewer-Deluce (PhD, Dept of Pathology and Molecular Medicine), along with their research team in the Education Program for Anatomy, have been awarded the McMaster Surgery Association (MSA) research award for 2024, totalling $50 000. These funds will enable them and their research team to continue their pursuit of identifying an ideal embalming solution for use in surgical skills training of ultrasound-guided procedures. Currently, the gold standard for PGME training involves resident participation in real cases with real patients and real risk. By transitioning this learning out of the OR and into the anatomy lab, we reduce 3 things: 1) OR demands, 2) stress on novice learners and 3) risk to patients, while also increasing the number of educationally relevant practice exposures each trainee can complete. Soft-embalmed human cadavers have long been considered an ideal training model for surgical skills training and this work stands to push our simulation capabilities beyond surgical technique to incorporate ultrasound and other needle-guided procedure training in this efficacious manner.