Each year during the International Conference on Residency Education (ICRE), trailblazing medical educators, resident leaders and outstanding program administrators are recognized for their valuable contributions and accomplishments within the field of residency training, advocacy and practice.

We’re thrilled to announce the recipients of the 2024 International Residency Education Awards:

International Medical Educator of the Year Award

This award is given to an international residency educator who has demonstrated a commitment to enhancing residency education as evidenced by innovation and impact beyond their program. The 2024 recipient is Çiğdem Arıkan, MD. 

Dr. Arıkan is a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Koc University School of Medicine (KUSOM) in Istanbul. After training in medicine at Istanbul University Medical School, she completed her Paediatrics residency at The Marmara University School of Medicine followed by a Paediatric GI, Hepatology and Liver Transplant fellowship training at the Ege University. She is a graduate of the Education Scholar’s Program of Ege University School of Medicine and Koc University Medical Education and Research Academy Educator Education Program.

Dr. Arıkan is the Associate Dean, postgraduate medical education (PGME) at KUSOM and the program director of the Paediatrics residency program, responsible for mentoring and monitoring the clinical training of residents and undergraduate medical students.  She also mentors postgraduate basic scientists (Master, PhD candidate, and PhDs) for the Graduate School of Health Sciences.  

Dr. Arıkan has been instrumental in the introduction of competency-based medical education standards to the Department of Paediatrics and the establishment of the pediatric residency education committee and subcommittees. In 2020, she was appointed to the KUSOM PGME Committee to initiate and carry out the accreditation process of the KUSOM residency programs in Turkiye. Dr. Arikan works collaboratively with KUSOM leadership and residency stakeholders to provide some of the nation's preeminent training programs. Dr. Arıkan is currently leading the transformation of PGME according to Royal College of Canada standards and continues to make recommendations for quality improvement initiatives based on qualitative and quantitative data.

Her clinical and scholarly work focuses on the care of patients with liver diseases, liver transplantation and eosinophilic gastrointestinal disorders. She is deeply committed to collaborative efforts towards generating new knowledge in these areas.

International Resident Leadership Award 

This award is given to an international resident who has demonstrated leadership in specialty education and encourages the development of future leaders in medicine. The 2024 recipient is Kaitlin Zaki-Metias, MD, FRCPC. 

Dr. Kaitlin Zaki-Metias is a recent graduate of the Diagnostic Radiology program at Trinity Health Oakland/Wayne State University where she served as chief resident for the 2023-2024 academic year. She is currently a clinical fellow in Breast and Abdominal Imaging at Western University and a graduate student in the Master of Health Management Program at McMaster University.  

Dr. Zaki-Metias has demonstrated her passion for leadership and for improving the trainee experience through various avenues; she was instrumental in developing a fund to support trainee scholarly activity, advocating for pay parity for residents and fellows relative to regional institutions and took initiative in redesigning the radiology Medical Student Teaching Program. She successfully advocated for the creation of the International Trainee Representative position on the Canadian Association of Radiologists (CAR) Resident and Fellow Section (RFS) to represent the needs of Canadians training abroad, a position in which she served for its inaugural year.  

Following completion of her fellowship training, Dr. Zaki-Metias will return to her hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba for practice. She continues to pursue opportunities which allow her to make a difference in specialty medical education and hopes to continue to serve as a mentor and educator while providing care to her community.

Kristin Sivertz Resident Leadership Award

This award is given to a resident who has demonstrated leadership in Canadian specialty education and encourages the development of future leaders in medicine. The 2024 recipients are Wendy Ye, MD, MSc, and Sonja Wakeling, MD, FRCPC. 

Dr. Wendy Ye is a recent graduate of the Adult Nephrology program at the University of Toronto. She completed core Internal Medicine residency at McMaster University, where she was awarded the PGME Resident Leader Award and the Internal Medicine Chief Medical Resident Award. Dr. Ye is passionate about teaching, mentorship and research in medical education. She was instrumental in the implementation of CBME in her program, co-chaired the bootcamp committee for orientation of new residents and the development of an evidence-based tool kit for nephrology mentorship.

Her research interest lies in exploring the intricacies and nuances of professionalism in clinical practice and curriculum development. Her current work on the role of resident self-identity in experiences of professionalism during training was highlighted as a top resident research abstract nominee at ICRE 2024. Dr. Ye is also working on an assessment of education gaps in home dialysis with the goal of developing standardized, clinical competencies in home dialysis training. Her previous research has been published in Academic Medicine and CMAJ Open. Her work has been generously funded by the Royal College and Physician Services Incorporated Foundation.   

Dr. Ye is currently enrolled in the Master of Health Professional Education at Maastricht University, where her thesis will be on understanding the contextual factors that influence supervisor interpretation of learner professionalism behaviours. She hopes to continue her career as an academic clinician educator as she completes her clinical training in home dialysis at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Wakeling graduated from the Emergency Medicine Residency Training Program at McMaster University in June 2024 and is currently working as an emergency physician at Hamilton Health Sciences and Trillium Health Partners in Ontario.  

She was extensively involved in resident leadership and medical education throughout her training. Within the Professional Association of Residents of Ontario (PARO), she was the McMaster Site Chair in 2021-2022 where she focused on pre-accreditation preparations, advocacy for safe learning environments, advocacy for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccinations for residents, and access to the Medical Resident Redeployment Program locally. Since 2022, she has served on the PARO Board of Directors, most recently as PARO President from 2023-2024 and is now the Past President this term. Dr. Wakeling helped navigate significant organizational change during her time as President, where she provided stability in leadership and served on the hiring committee for the new CEO. Following the decision which declared Bill 124 unconstitutional in Ontario, she was a member of the team that achieved substantial contract improvements which directly impacted the well-being and financial stability of residents in Ontario.  

Since 2023, she has worked with Resident Doctors of Canada (RDoC), serving on the Board of Directors last year and is currently in her second term as Chair of the Finance Audit and Risk Committee. She has acted as an on-site accreditation surveyor for the Royal College and was the national resident voice on the Royal College Residency Accreditation Committee. Dr. Wakeling was also one of the chief residents in her residency program, where among many tasks she managed senior resident scheduling, was involved in CaRMS interviews and resident selection and supported and mentored residents in education, clinical and wellness initiatives. 

Dr. Wakeling is pursuing additional training within the Royal College AFC Clinician Educator Program at McMaster University, and in January 2025 will take over as a co-director of the Simulation curriculum in McMaster’s Emergency Medicine Residency Training Program. 

Program Director of the Year Award 

This award is given to a program director who has demonstrated a commitment to enhancing residency education as evidenced by innovation and impact beyond their program. Up to two awards are presented. The 2024 recipients are Alim Pardhan, MD, MBA, FRCPC and Adrienne Tan, MD, FRCPC. 

Dr. Pardhan is an emergency physician and an associate professor of medicine at McMaster University. He works clinically at the Hamilton Health Sciences and McMaster Children’s Hospital. He just completed a 10-year term as the program director for the Royal College Emergency Medicine Program.  

Dr. Pardhan has been consistently involved with the Specialty Committee at the Royal College and serves on a number of education committees at McMaster including the Accreditation Committee. He has also served in many administrative and educational roles within the university and hospitals.  

During his term as Program Director, Dr. Pardhan worked with the education team to transition to Competence by Design, increase stage specific educational sessions and helped introduce more simulation and an EDI Curriculum to the program.

Dr. Tan is a clinician-educator and associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto. She currently serves as the program director for the General Psychiatry Residency Program at UofT which has 200 residents across five years of training. She completed her MD at the University of British Columbia, followed by Psychiatry Residency training at University of Toronto and a fellowship in Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. 

Dr. Tan considers herself a perpetual learner having completed the Education Scholars Program through the Centre for Faculty Development at University of Toronto, alongside additional training at the Toronto Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and University of Illinois Chicago’s Master of Health Professions Education program.  

Clinically, she leads, and is a member of, the Medical Psychiatry Division at the University Health Network’s Centre for Mental Health where she provides psychiatric care to patients with complex medical and surgical conditions. Between 2018-2023, she led the successful effort to have Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry recognized as an Area of Focused Competence. 

She has been the recipient of multiple medical education awards including the Marie Mara Award for resident advocacy in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto (2023) and the Temerty Faculty of Medicine’s award for excellence in Postgraduate Medical Education for teaching performance, mentorship and advocacy (2021). 

Program Administrator Award for Excellence

This award is given to a Residency Program Administrator who has demonstrated a commitment to enhancing residency education as evidenced by innovation and excellence beyond their program. The 2024 recipient is Stephanie Herlidan.   

Stephanie Herlidan is the academic program administrator in the Discipline of Anesthesia at Memorial University of Newfoundland.  She holds a Business Administration Certificate from the College of the North Atlantic and a Bachelor of Education Degree from Memorial University.

As program administrator, Stephanie has the privilege of working closely with the program director and resident learners.  She describes herself as a lifelong learner with a mission to continuously contribute to residency education and be as helpful as possible. Each resident learner is unique and her goal is to support them in ways that meet their individualized needs.  Stephanie takes pride in being a resident advocate and fostering an environment that they feel comfortable in.  She enjoys getting to know the residents professionally and personally; they are an extension of her family and sees herself as their biggest fan.  

These awards will be presented at the 2024 International Conference on Residency Education on Saturday, September 21, 2024.  Learn more and register.