Strategic Priorities

Our Values

Faculty: We value the people who provide emergency care, who educate emergency medicine learners and who search for answers and we celebrate their achievements

Collaboration: We can accomplish the most if the whole DEM community works together, sharing ownership of our problems and focusing all our varied resources on solutions

Partnerships: We actively reach out and partner with others both within and outside BC to advance common goals and interests, and to foster intra- and inter-disciplinary collaboration and networks

Respect: We treat all parties with respect, dignity, integrity, honesty and humanity

Ethics: We always act according to the highest ethical principles when dealing with patients, research subjects, colleagues, and partners

Scholarship: We promote a dynamic and inquisitive environment, challenging conventional wisdom, and ensuring that we make new and significant contributions to education, research and service

Innovation: We seek-out, generate, and apply new and creative insights, technologies, and approaches in the fulfillment of our mandate.

Integration: We integrate education, research, and service, valuing the contributions of each in promoting knowledge and improving health

Accountability: We hold ourselves accountable to the communities we serve and the generations who come after us

Excellence: We strive for excellence in all that we do

Our Mission

To bring our vision into reality, the Department of Emergency Medicine:

  • Plays the lead role in provincial integration of clinical emergency care with knowledge creation and synthesis; knowledge exchange and education
  • Identifies and addresses gaps in emergency care in BC through a coordinated network of emergency practitioners
  • Partners with stakeholders in BC to develop and implement cost-effective emergency health care policy
  • Advances emergency medical care nationally and globally
  • Uses and advances best educational methodologies across the spectrum of learners
  • Strengthens and broadens clinical and academic leadership in the specialty of emergency medicine
  • Enhances patient safety, harm reduction and prevention in the population we serve

Our Goals

UBC is a unique medical school due to its distribution across a broad geography. The Faculty of Medicine serves and supports not only the traditional core sites but also the sites outside the Lower Mainland to ensure success for the distributed medical school.

The Department of Emergency Medicine believes that the most effective strategy to make a positive impact on emergency care delivered in BC is to develop a network that facilitates meaningful and regular communication among those: who deliver care in small centers, large community hospital and academic centers; who investigate better ways to deliver care or prevent disease; who evaluate care; who specialize in knowledge sharing; who manage health care delivery; and who develop health care policy that impacts emergency care.

An effective knowledge translation framework for emergency practitioners in BC would be the final common pathway for knowledge generated or synthesized by UBC DEM faculty. The Department of Emergency Medicine faculty includes members who are leaders in knowledge translation and continuing professional development. As a key component of the network of emergency practitioners we will work with emergency practitioners to design, build and evaluate processes and infrastructure to facilitate efficient and effective knowledge sharing solutions.

Emergency Departments are rich learning environments that provide a broad range of undifferentiated clinical problems and opportunities for procedures. Students receive one-on-one supervision by faculty while gaining clinical experiences mandated by accreditation. Students highly regard their clerkship and electives in Emergency Medicine at UBC. Active, continuous quality improvement and continued development of the teaching programs in alignment with UBC Faculty of Medicine curriculum renewal will further enhance undergraduate medical education, continue to demonstrate leadership within the Faculty of Medicine, encourage the best and brightest students to consider a career in emergency medicine and provide a strong educational foundation for medical students regardless of their ultimate chosen practice.

British Columbia is a beautiful destination with first-rate teaching facilities and faculty and a reputation for excellence. Using a continuous improvement approach and taking advantage of clinical expertise in sites throughout the province will ensure that our FRCPC and CCFP(EM) programs are known as the premier emergency medicine residencies in the country.

We will expand the RCPS residency training program and advocate for expansion of the CFPC (EM) certification and enhanced skills programs in all Health Authorities to meet manpower needs.

Research is essential to the mission of the department. The spirit of inquiry defines a university department as different from other organizations that focus on improving patient care. The Department of Emergency Medicine faculty have remarkable track records in research. With increased collaboration, coordination and support we strive to be the best emergency medicine research program in the country.

Our current financial support is not ideal. Sufficient revenue to support our mission must be secured so that we can strengthen academic leadership and attract the best faculty to carry out our objectives. All resources must be used effectively and efficiently to support the mission and the priority strategies.

We will ensure that the resources received are aligned with the goals and expectations of the funding source, whether it is the Ministry of Health, the Faculty of Medicine, Health Authorities, Public Agencies, Clinical Groups, Industry or Non-Profit organizations.

We will specifically develop a business plan to articulate the reasons for developing an integrated network, specific goals and objectives, strategic partners and stakeholders and their roles, the financial plan and the details of implementation.