Dr. Jonathan Gaudet: 2021 Program Director of the Year Award recipient
Jonathan Gaudet, MD, MSc, FRCPC is the Adult Critical Care Medicine Residency Training Program Director at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine. Since he took over the directorship in 2016-2017, Dr. Gaudet has shown an exemplary commitment to innovation in residency education.
Enthusiastic implementation of CBD
Recognizing a once-in-a-generation opportunity for program transformation, Dr. Gaudet enthusiastically worked with his team on the implementation of Competence by Design. By appointing a CBD lead, overseeing a rigorous coaching and feedback element and soft launching the program’s new educational processes and assessment tools in advance of the formal transition, the University of Calgary Department of Critical Care Residency Training Program was able to successfully launch CBD in July 2019.
Given his interest in workplace-based coaching, he collaborated with colleagues to develop and publish the BE-SMART framework for providing clinical feedback and coaching. Through their lived training experiences and the robust academic curriculum, residents in Dr. Gaudet’s CBD program become well prepared for their certification exams.
A world-class physician and trainer
Dr. Gaudet enthusiastically shares his medical expertise with his trainees. He has a knack for sharing his mental model and distilling complex concepts into easily understood language and he creates a non-threatening learning environment for them. He also takes his attending physician position seriously serving as a role model for them for each of the CanMEDS roles. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, he demonstrated strong leadership by reorganizing critical care services to maximize capacity while maintaining trainees’ key educational experiences. He creates and maintains an environment supporting trainee scholarship, supporting a clinical research curriculum, and trains his fellows exceptionally well through a clinical communication skills curriculum.
A proactive and caring mentor
Another area where Dr. Gaudet shines as a Program Director is in his thoughtful, individualized mentorship of his critical care medicine trainees. Dr. Gaudet prepares his residents for the careers they envision for themselves by helping them crystalize their passions within Critical Care Medicine and then maximizing their exposure to subspecialty areas of interest with the overall goal of helping them to develop a career niche complete with commensurate expertise and additional training in their desired field.
Dr. Gaudet is also regarded by his residents as honest, genuine and kind – traits that encourage a culture in his program of ethical behaviour, critical introspection and overall wellness. He genuinely cares about each individual and encourages them to invest in their personal lives alongside academic and professional pursuits. Put simply, Dr. Gaudet is a wonderful program director.
