Continuing the Tradition – STARS Student-Led Virtual Clinical Decision-Making Conference

Dec 15, 2021 - News

McMaster University Resource Stewardship Interest Group hosts the 6th Annual Clinical Decision Making Conference.

Continuing the Tradition – STARS Student-Led Virtual Clinical Decision-Making Conference

Dec 15, 2021 - News

McMaster University Resource Stewardship Interest Group hosts the 6th Annual Clinical Decision Making Conference.

The 6th Annual Clinical Decision-Making Conference was held virtually on Saturday, October 16. This conference is a collaboration between the McMaster University Resource Stewardship Interest Group led by STARS students and the Hamilton Academy of Medicine. This year, the conference was held virtually and was attended by a mix of health professional students from coast to coast. The student-led conference organizing team was led by Lindsey Falk, Mehar Sassan, Karam Elsolh, Sam Stager, Jonah Rakoff and Raveena Kapoor, with the support of the McMaster STARS faculty lead and family physician Dr. Jason Profetto.

The students reached out to Choosing Wisely leaders across the country for keynotes and workshops that were accessible and practical to a medical student audience. The full agenda is available online at this link.

The conference kicked off with a keynote by Dr. Amit Arya, a palliative care physician at North York General Hospital in Toronto. The student organizer team observed that “because of the massive impact of COVID-19 on long-term care, students are very interested in how the sector is learning and improving after the pandemic.” Dr. Arya emphasized the importance of goals of care conversations to avoid unnecessary and potential harmful interventions for long-term care residents and to ensure high-quality care at the end of life.

There were six interactive workshops that focused on practical topics and skills including how Choosing Wisely recommendations can be applied in the laboratory setting, shared decision-making with patients to avoid unnecessary antibiotic prescribing, and how to apply clinical decision rules into the busy emergency department setting. Workshops were facilitated by STARS students from other medical schools and upper-year McMaster medical students to encourage interactivity among students. The closing keynote featured Dr. Sarah Cook, primary care physician in Yellowknife and clinical lead for Choosing Wisely Northwest Territories on resource stewardship in rural and remote communities. Dr. Cook’s keynote offered clinical pearls in practicing medicine in rural and remote environments and emphasized how virtual care can be leveraged to support better quality of care in these settings and avoid unnecessary medical travel.

The student organizing team emphasized that “the diversity of content and speakers was inspiring to health professional students and also emphasized practical ways that resource stewardship principles translate into clinical skills.”