The University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine has received a $10-million gift from the Temerty Foundation to support Toronto’s hospital and health-science network as it responds to the COVID-19 pandemic. Received in early April, the gift was committed to create the Dean’s COVID-19 Priority Fund. This priority fund directly supports a number of CPD and PGME activities.
With support from the fund, the CPD team pivoted to support physician education around COVID-19. CPD established an internal working group who worked closely with the CPD leads in the clinical departments to coordinate efforts and develop general and specialty-specific education initiatives. Activities included the development of a COVID-19 Website to serve as hub for education and clinical resources, creation of a COVID-19 Resource Library, a searchable database containing 180 curated resources and clinical supports from trusted sources; including both general and specialty-specific resources as well as information to support virtual care and wellness, delivery of a COVID-19 Webinar Series, which offered 44 different webinars on a range of topics including variety of specialty-specific clinical topics related to COVID-19, virtual care, wellness, COVID-19 impact on care for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), and the equity diversity and inclusion (EDI) implications of COVID-19, establishment of a special CPD Response to COVID-19 Fund (CPD-CRF) to support research and innovation in education and support for program directors and conference chairs in transitioning to a virtual learning environment.
This investment helped to establish isolation housing for medical residents and fellows, provided emergency student funds for those impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and supported professional development for clinicians and trainees who found themselves navigating unfamiliar areas of health care due to redeployment, such as the ICU or palliative medicine.