Dr. Joanna Bates
Vancouver, British Columbia
2019

2019 Ian McWhinney Award winner Dr. Joanna BatesDr. Joanna Bates is a professor emerita of family medicine at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the founding director of the Centre for Health Education Scholarship in UBC’s Faculty of Medicine. Dr. Bates has held numerous roles at UBC, including professor, associate dean of admissions, and senior associate dean. During her tenure in these roles she led the doubling in size of UBC’s undergraduate medical program and its distribution to two new campuses using technological infrastructure.

From 1977 to 1993 Dr. Bates was a community-based family physician, which included teaching medical students and residents in her practice. During this time she also served as the director of medical education at St. Paul’s Hospital (SPH) in Vancouver, where she was responsible for the rotating internship. She chaired the provincial committee that transformed the rotating internships in British Columbia into family medicine residency programs and was instrumental in the development of the SPH family medicine residency site. Dr. Bates filled senior roles with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia and the Medical Council of Canada; participated on the Board of Examinations and Certification and the Residency Accreditation Committee of the CFPC; and served as president of the Canadian Association for Medical Education.

Over the course of her career Dr. Bates has enjoyed taking on numerous roles and learning from their varied challenges as well as developing collaborative relationships with colleagues, trainees, and patients. Despite retiring in 2018 and living with ALS, Dr. Bates continues to write and publish.

Ian McWhinney Family Medicine Education Award

This award is named in memory of Dr. Ian McWhinney, the first professor and chair of a department of family medicine at a Canadian university (Western University, 1968–1987). The award is supported by the CFPC, the Foundation for Advancing Family Medicine, and the Ian McWhinney Endowment Fund.

The award honours excellence in family medicine education and is presented to a teacher of family medicine deemed by their peers to have made a unique and innovative contribution that significantly impacts the development of family medicine education in Canada.

This contribution may encompass any level or aspect of family medicine education, including but not limited to:

  • Continued medical education
  • Teaching
  • Curriculum development
  • Scholarship
  • Administration