Safety and Quality
This is an academic Fellowship, with a clinical component. Fellows are expected to complete formal course work at the University of Calgary, including related examinations, and to prepare to publish in peer-reviewed journals during the course of the Fellowship. Those who complete the Fellowship requirements will receive a Certificate from the Cumming School of Medicine, stating their demonstrated competency in Safety and Quality principles in Anesthesia.
Our goal is to match the Fellowship training experience with the educational goals and future practice needs of each Fellow. To that end, Fellows will be paired with experts in safety or quality, depending on their specific interest. Previous experience with (Patient) Safety/Quality (Improvement) concepts is desirable. In addition, anesthesiologists with a background or an interest in aviation, and who might wish to focus on the application of selected aviation concepts to healthcare safety, are encouraged to apply.
Fellowship supervisors endeavor to provide the knowledge, skills and experiences necessary to develop and implement safety and/or quality initiatives, helping Fellows work towards becoming leaders in their field.
Perioperative Medicine Fellowship Contacts
Dr. Michelle Theam
Email: michelle.theam@ahs.ca
Dr. Michelle Theam, MD, is a pediatric anesthesiologist at Alberta Children’s Hospital (ACH). She completed a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences at the University of Calgary followed by medical school at the Cumming School of Medicine and anesthesia residency at the University of Alberta. She returned to her hometown of Calgary to complete her Pediatric Anesthesia Fellowship at the University of Calgary and has been on-staff at ACH since 2016. Her area of interest includes quality improvement and protocol-driven care pathways as well as patient safety events. She is also the pediatric anesthesia section lead of Quality and Safety for at ACH.
Dr. Donal Finegan
Email: donal.finegan@ahs.ca
Dr. Donal Finegan, MD, completed a Bachelor of Science at the University of Alberta and began his medical training at McGill University in Montreal, completing a combined MD & MBA degree program. He pursued an anesthesia residency followed by a fellowship in Safety and Quality in the Department of Anesthesia at the University of Calgary. His professional interests include medical informatics and the application of data to quality improvement in medicine. Dr. Finegan serves as the Alberta Provincial Knowledge Lead for Anesthesia as well as the Anesthesia Medical Informatics Lead for Alberta Health Services, Calgary Zone. He is a member of the Anesthesia Zone Quality Assurance Committee as well as the Calgary Zone Surgical Quality Council. Dr. Finegan is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary.
Dr. Jan Davies
Email:
Dr. Jan Davies, MD, is a Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at the Cumming School of Medicine. She is also a member of W21C, a healthcare systems research and innovation initiative based in the University of Calgary’s O'Brien Institute for Public Health, and the Calgary Zone of Alberta Health Services.
She has a BSc from the University of British Columbia and an MSc from the University of Alberta. After completing medical school at the University of Calgary and residency training at Dalhousie University, she was a Clinical Fellow at Dalhousie, before undertaking a Killam Foundation Fellowship at the University of Manitoba. She then returned to the University of Calgary to pursue her academic career. Since 1983 she has undertaken research in system safety, in both healthcare and aviation. Her current research includes refinement of investigation methodologies for personnel performance review and for system safety, Human Factors analysis of medical devices and healthcare environments, integration of quality and safety management, analysis of High Reliability Organizations, and passenger and crew aviation accident survivability. She is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.