By: Jason De Melo, Education Lead for the ORT
The mission of the UHN’s Office of Research Trainees (ORT) is to contribute towards research productivity and excellence at UHN by providing leadership and support in trainee-related matters. This means that The ORT is here to support each one of the 1432 trainees here at UHN!
How the ORT does this is constantly evolving, but in practice, The ORT supports Research at UHN in four major areas:
- Providing support to Trainees and Principal Investigators. This includes answering over 3000 inquires per year from trainees, PIs and staff from all six research institutes, conducting orientations for summer student trainees, coordinating with various international programs and supporting trainee immigration and relocation to Canada.
- Promoting communication between UHN and Trainees. The ORT does this by providing a safe avenue for trainees to communicate with UHN, and coordinating the publishing the ORT Times, a monthly newsletter for the UHN research community focused exclusively on UHN trainees (you’re reading it right now!). This newsletter includes articles related to research, career development and the trainee experience as well as information on funding opportunities, workshops, courses and networking.
- Working to reduce risk and increases efficiencies in and out of the lab. The ORT chairs and attends various committees to represent research trainees and provide recommendations in the development of procedures and standards at UHN. These include the Research Executive Committees and Education Leadership Council where ORT ensures trainee issues are heard.
- Enhancing the trainee experience and supporting career development. We help coordinate the development of courses, workshops, information sessions and events for trainees and support staff, secure sponsorship for events and manage internal financial awards for trainees. The ORT website also provides resources for trainees, from finding daycare to research funding, www.uhntrainees.ca.
The last area, developing initiatives to enhance the trainee experience and support career development, has seen tremendous demand and growth. The ORT has facilitated 23 workshops for UHN trainees over the past two years (9 in 2017 and 14 in 2018). The topics have spanned Networking and Career Development to Research Skills. What has become clear is that UHN Trainees are looking for experiences to help them be competitive in a challenging job market.
For instance, access to teaching opportunities has been identified as a clear gap in the training of UHN Trainees, particularly for postdoctoral fellows, who do not have an affiliation with the University of Toronto. To meet this need, the ORT has been partnering with the Michener Institute for Education at UHN to provide opportunities for UHN trainees to develop and teach courses within the department of Continuing Education (CE) at the Michener. The first course taught in this program was Genome Editing Techniques and Applications (registration now open for the August 2019 session). UHN Trainees interested in gaining teaching experience, either as a teaching assistant or to help develop a course as part of this Continuing Education for Research program should contact ort.admin@uhnresearch.ca.
As the needs of our trainees are evolving, so is the ORT. What started out as an initiative spearheaded by Dr. Linda Penn and supported by a part-time Coordinator, has now grown into a dedicated office with an Education Lead, a Coordinator and a part-time Administrative Assistant supporting Dr. Penn. The ORT is here to for you, the trainee, and as trainee needs evolve, so will the ORT!