Dr. Andy Chalmers

2012 Teacher-Educator Award

Andy Chalmers started his medical training in Cape Town South Africa. He came to Canada in 1967 on an MRC scholarship. He then completed medical school at UBC in 1971 and trained in Internal medicine in Vancouver and the Mayo clinic. He completed rheumatology training in Vancouver and Toronto. Andy has 68 peer-reviewed publications in clinical rheumatology and rheumatology education.

Andy was head of the division of Rheumatology at UBC from 1983 to 1993. In 1992 spearheaded a review of the undergraduate curriculum and developed the first interdepartmental OSCE at UBC.

In 1994 he was appointed Associate Dean Undergraduate Curriculum where he created a modern problem-based learning curriculum and a course focusing on the doctor, patient and society.

Finally at UBC he also chaired the Aboriginal admissions committee and when the medical school moved to a multi-site model he co-chaired the implementation of the Island Medical program in Victoria.

Nationally he was a member of the Medical Council of Canada’s committee to set National Examination objectives in Internal Medicine and a member of the group that designed the Council’s National OSCE examination.

Internationally he was awarded an Asia Pacific scholarship to evaluate and help improve the curriculum at a medical school in Vietnam and has also done workshops in Taiwan.

In 1996 he was awarded the Bobby Miller award for excellence in teaching by peers at the Vancouver General Hospital. He also was awarded the Killam Prize for teaching in 2002 for post-graduate and undergraduate education and in 2011 the Fay Dirks award for teaching in the Department of Medicine.

He has continued to be involved in the post-graduate activities of the division and recently published a paper on a new interactive case based model for case based teaching in the Rheumatology Fellow’s clinic.