Peter Gill shakes hands with Dr. Miller, dean of the faculty, during convocation 2014.
Peter Gill, MD/PhD '14, is no stranger to prestigious awards. Since he began medical school with the University of Alberta in 2006, he has won the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire's War Memorial Scholarship Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee, a Leaders of Tomorrow Award from the Alberta Science and Technology Leadership Foundation, a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Rising Star Award and a Rhodes Scholarship.
As he begins residency training at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Gill also prepares to collect what he expects will be the final award for his work as an undergraduate medical student: the Canadian Medical Association Student Award for Young Leaders. He will receive the award August 20 during the association's 147th annual general meeting.
"I am extremely humbled to be selected for this prestigious award from the CMA recognizing my commitment to child health," says Gill, an aspiring pediatrician and clinician-scientist. "It is such an honour and privilege to be selected amongst a pool of incredible and well-qualified Canadian medical students."
The young leader awards recognize future leaders in medicine for their dedication, commitment and leadership in political, clinical, educational, research and community service. One nominee is selected from each category: student, resident and early career.
Gill was recognized for his development and co-founding role in PedsCases, an educational website that offers interactive cases, podcasts, videos and other resources to help bridge the knowledge gap between the classroom and clerkship. The website boasts visitors from more than 150 countries and has amassed 310,000 podcast downloads since it was launched in 2008.
"PedsCases is an innovative resource that began as a grassroots project by me and a few colleagues at the U of A," he says of the project. "The pediatric curriculum at many Canadian medical schools is not presented in a cohesive manner, and students often find it difficult to obtain a comprehensive foundation in pediatrics prior to entering clerkship."
Having already made improvements to pediatric education, Gill has recently turned his focus toward ongoing assessment of the quality of care delivered by the Canadian health-care system, with a particular emphasis on pediatric care. Gill asserts that while some areas of medicine incorporate evidence-based improvements regularly, he believes it "should be completed more systematically for children."
An evaluative step that Gill is eager to take would mimic a study he completed in the United Kingdom as a Rhodes Scholar. He examined data collected over a 12-year period that showed a dramatic increase in hospital admissions for children under the age of 15 with acute conditions, such as gastroenteritis or respiratory tract infections. These minor ailments can be effectively treated in the primary care setting, an approach that Gill argues is better for the children and allows limited emergency room resources to be better allocated. Gill won the CIHR Rising Star Award with this research.
"I aim to improve the quality of care for children in Canada and to integrate the delivery of evidence-informed health care into everyday practice," he says. "This includes incorporating the best available evidence into clinical practice to ensure high-quality care, but also extends to generating new evidence and information to provide better care to children in the future."
Gill was nominated for the CMA Award for Young Leaders by Kent Stobart, former associate dean of undergraduate medical education, and Mel Lewis, co-founder of PedsCases and associate dean of Learner Advocacy and Wellness.