At Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, clinicians, educators and researchers  are transforming care through education and research every day. This is especially true of the role played by some 30 health-care professionals who also serve as clinical education liaisons (CEL), supporting the 93 new learners who arrived this past September. As an academic health science centre fully affiliated with the University of Toronto, Holland Bloorview is proud to support and mentor the next generation of clinicians – a commitment we are celebrating on World Teachers’ Day, October 5.

“The clinical education liaison role is truly one-of-a-kind at Holland Bloorview,” said Kimberlea Jones-Galley, who is the hospital's CEL lead and student coordinator. “We are taking a bold step of embedding a dedicated lead across 20 health, research and education disciplines – it’s a groundbreaking approach to clinical education.”

A one-of-a-kind approach to clinical education 

Indeed, the staff who have the CEL role as part of their responsibilities play a vital role in connecting students from various academic institutions to the hospital’s clinical supervisors, preceptors and the Teaching and Learning Institute.  As CELs, they also provide support and leadership to their professional groups regarding student activity within the various placements in the hospital and meet regularly to workshop ideas and problem solve under the leadership of Jones-Galley.

Every year, over 500 students receive hands-on training in their respective fields, and the CELs in wide-ranging disciplines – from music therapy and research to nursing and social work – make these connections possible.

“The CEL role is pivotal in ensuring each student has the best learning experience at Holland Bloorview,” says Jones-Galley. “As Ontario’s only hospital-based health sciences centre providing advanced education in childhood disability and developmental differences, we are creating education opportunities for students to help  launch their careers in childhood disability research and clinical care.

We are deeply grateful to our staff across clinical, nursing, research, medicine, and non-clinical roles who serve as supervisors and preceptors, as well as those who teach at the University of Toronto and other affiliated academic institutions.”

Shaping the future of health care through student mentorship 

Andrea Lamont, a music therapist and CEL, supervises and mentors undergraduate and graduate students from Wilfrid Laurier University’s music therapy programs. These students have a unique opportunity to work directly with clients as part of their internship. In addition to gaining real-world experience as music therapists, the graduate students also have specialized training in music psychotherapy – a type of therapy that can be used to support clients by using music to ‘work through’ a feeling that may be difficult to express.

“Each student brings to the team their own musical journey and perspective. I especially love the ‘a-ha’ moments during supervision when they are able to connect theory to practice for the first time,” says Lamont. “I feel that every student we host is an opportunity to positively influence the future of health care in Ontario. By providing positive and transformational experiences for our students, we can be confident that this will result in better care wherever they land in their careers.”

For Lorry Chen, volunteering as a CEL in her role as a dietitian with the Extensive Needs Service and neuromuscular teams gives her immense satisfaction. She says she ‘learns as much from her students, as they are from her’. Her clinical learners come from universities across the nutrition and dietetics programs from the Greater Toronto Area and southern Ontario. 

Chen shares her hopes for emerging clinical professionals: “I’m hopeful that they’ll truly experience the family-centred care that our teams at Holland Bloorview take such pride in. Great teams are built by empathetic clinicians who actively listen, collaborate with families and each other, and work toward goals that matter most to our clients and their families.”

By Suelan Toye