An incredible amount of work has gone into our preparation for the accreditation visit that begins this Sunday, October 29. Thank you to all!

To our 215 people participating in accreditation visit meetings and tours, thank you for all you’ve done to date to prepare, and thank you in advance for your contributions during the visit. We simply could not do this without your commitment, support and involvement. Your role is critical and deeply appreciated.

To our accreditation team—all of you “on the ground” in Regina, Saskatoon and Prince Albert in this humongous effort—you are amazing! Talk about dedication; our college could not have asked for more. I’m thinking of all those who led and supported content gathering for our documentation, I’m thinking of the working and leadership teams focused on a quality visit, I’m thinking of students, faculty, staff and key stakeholders who worked on our subcommittees prior to the mock visit last February. On behalf of your college and all of the people you’ve supported for a successful accreditation outcome, I offer each of you a heartfelt and resounding thank you.

Extensive work has gone into improvements to our undergraduate medical education curriculum and student support and services, updating and organizing policies and procedures, gathering and presenting data, and much more. And in the midst of it all, we developed some fabulous processes in our preparation that will support our ongoing work on continuous improvement.

Leaders spend much of their time calling on people and relying on them answering. Your college called on you, and you answered. Together, we have shown the strength and commitment of our team. As your dean, I couldn’t be more proud.

This has truly been a team effort, and we have come together as only great teams do. We are ready.

You need to make mistakes in rehearsal because that’s how you find out what works and what doesn’t.  – Clarke Peters, actor, singer, writer and director

This week at the CoM, many of our faculty, residents, staff and stakeholders are participating in a series of rehearsal meetings to further our readiness for meetings with the accreditation visitors, who will be here October 29 to November 1. Our documentation is complete, we have completed our preparation meetings, and now the next leg of this journey is this week’s rehearsal meetings.  As we rally for this important push, I want to sincerely thank all of you who have participated in document writing or review official documents, review of the preparation materials, and your commitment of time, effort and support to showcase how proud we are of our college.  

We have used these rehearsals to test our knowledge, our IT systems, and to polish our group interview skills. This experience has also solidified that we are in this together; our faculty are sharing stories of individual experiences, which is actually sharing best practices among our peers! 

I hope you have, or will if your meeting is yet to come, taken good advantage of this opportunity. I appreciate your commitment to getting this right. Our accreditation experts and your colleagues at your meeting(s) are a great resource! So this week is the time for making mistakes, asking questions and getting more comfortable with your role as a participant in our fast-approaching accreditation visit.

If, after your rehearsal, you have walked away with some remaining questions or uncertainties, our accreditation team is here to help. This applies to our students, as well. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at med.quality@usask.ca. 

And, as always, I welcome your feedback.