Dr. W. Dale Dauphinee Award for Excellence in Medical Education

Constance Bouthillier is a third-year medical student at the Université de Montréal. Before starting medical school, she worked as a lawyer specializing in commercial and medical litigation at a national firm. She holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Juris Doctor from the Université de Montréal.

Her experience in medical liability sparked her interest in integrating law and medicine, especially to better prepare future physicians for the legal and ethical challenges of clinical practice. In collaboration with the Fédération médicale étudiante du Québec and the law firm McCarthy Tétrault, she organized two conferences on preventing medical errors that attracted up to 370 participants. With the Comité en droit de la santé at the Université du Québec à Montréal, she helped organize an interdisciplinary symposium on complex topics such as artificial intelligence in medicine and organ donation.

Ms. Bouthillier is active in medical education research. She is involved in a project studying the impact of casting and splinting workshops for preclinical students, and she presented preliminary results at the C-CASE 2024 conference in Toronto. She is also collaborating on a qualitative study about psychological safety among medical clerks at CHU Sainte-Justine.

Additionally, Ms. Bouthillier is president of the Université de Montréal chapter of the Association of Women Surgeons, overseeing monthly journal clubs, an annual student research conference, and a surgical simulation day.

Through these roles, Ms. Bouthillier aims to contribute to innovative, interdisciplinary, and community-focused medical education.

Dr. Heather Nichol recently completed her residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation at Queen’s University. She previously earned a bachelor of science in life sciences from Queen’s University, a master of science in neuroscience from McGill University, and a doctor of medicine degree (MD) from Queen’s University.

Dr. Nichol’s passion for education has been a defining feature of her academic journey. As an undergraduate and graduate student, she designed and delivered academic success workshops, developed educator training programs, and educated youth on brain safety through community outreach. During medical school, she led anatomy tutorials, facilitated mentorship and personal development sessions, and contributed to the MD program’s wellness curriculum.

In residency, Dr. Nichol continued to advance her educational leadership. She supported medical students as a clinical skills instructor and developed a toolkit to promote psychological safety in small group learning. She represented residents on the Queen’s Resident Medical Education Committee and the Queen’s Resident Advisory Committee. Nationally, she contributed to the development of coaching modules through the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada’s Coaching over Time initiative.

Dr. Nichol’s scholarly interests lie in understanding how the educational environment and relationships between clinical teachers and learners influence the educational experience. Her qualitative research study exploring resident experiences of vulnerability in postgraduate medical education was published in Medical Education.

As Dr. Nichol transitions to independent practice at the Stan Cassidy Centre for Rehabilitation in Fredericton, New Brunswick, she looks forward to working with medical learners from Dalhousie University, participating in the development of the MD program curriculum, and expanding her exploration of vulnerability and psychological safety in medical education.