Director of Resident Affairs - Dr. Melissa Andrew

The role of the Director of Resident Affairs is to enrich the postgraduate experience by establishing and maintaining support services for residents.  This is done by providing a variety of services including:

• Support, counselling and referrals to postgraduate residents in difficulty.  Support will be provided on all aspects of the resident experience including issues relating to personal, career, financial, and academic matters.
• Support for International Medical Graduates and identify existing University programs of interest to the international community.
• Informing residents about their rights in academic matters and arbitrate between residents and faculty when contentious issues arise.
• Provision of feedback and recommendations to the Associate Dean, Postgraduate Medical Education, on resident services and administrative processes.
• Establishment of partnerships with providers of academic and non-academic support within the Queen’s community to facilitate timely access to those services by residents.
• Facilitating the transition from undergraduate medical student to postgraduate resident.

The Director of Resident Affairs is an ex-officio member of the Postgraduate Medical Education Committee, the PGY1 Subcommittee, and an invited member of the Medical Education Advisory Committee.

About the Director
 

Dr. Andrew is Psychiatrist Unit Director, Geriatric Psychiatry Outreach Team for Urban Kingston, at Providence Care-Mental Health Services in Kingston, Ontario. She is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry, Queen's University.  Dr. Andrew currently provides outreach consultation services across a spectrum of settings in Kingston and area.  She is also a Psychiatric Consultant for the Ontario Psychiatric Outreach Program.

 

In addition to her clinical work, Dr. Andrew has a strong interest in education at all levels. During a combined fellowship in Geriatric Psychiatry and Medical Education at Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre, Toronto (1998-2000), she completed a Master's Degree in Health Professional Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE-UT) (2000). She has been recently appointed as the inaugural Director of Resident Affairs for the School of Medicine, where her focus is on enhancing the postgraduate educational environment at Queen's. She is a member of Queen’s School of Medicine’s Medical Education Advisory Committee, and has been the course developer and facilitator for a novel, longitudinal educational series for family physicians aimed at maintaining the therapeutic alliance in dementia care. She is engaged in undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate clinical teaching and educational development, and chairs a Provincial committee co-ordinating Psychiatric Postgraduate education in northern and rural sites.

Dr. Andrew is the current Vice-President of the Canadian Academy of Geriatric Psychiatry (CAGP), and Co-Chair of the Education Committee. She is taking a national leadership role in the pursuing the recognition of Geriatric Psychiatry as a fully-fledged subspecialty in Canada. In 2008 she was a graduate of the inaugural Canadian Leadership Institute in Medical Education (CLIME). A current area of academic focus is on enriching and adapting core competencies in geriatric psychiatry for specific use in non-tertiary postgraduate training rotations. She has also presented at national education meetings in both Canada and the USA on the topic of helping educators to understand and develop leadership skills and expertise to further their practice as both teachers and education scholars.

 

To book an appointment with Dr. Andrew, contact her by email or by phone at (613) 533-2543.