Laurence Biro MScCH MD CCFP

Assistant Professor, DFCM, University of Toronto
Investigator, Institute for Better Health
Staff, Family Practice, Trillium Health Partners
Staff, Cardiac Surgery, St. Michael’s Hospital

W. T. Aikins Award for Excellence in Individual Teaching Performance: Foundations

MD Program Awards

Biography

Dr. Laurence Biro is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Family and Community Medicine. He provides broad scope primary care in the rural community of Chesley and works as a surgical assistant at St. Michael’s Hospital and Trillium Health Partners. His academic areas of interest include undergraduate clinical skill development, LGBTQ health education and student mentorship. Dr. Biro is currently providing leadership in the discovery of novel treatments for COVID-19.

Quote from the Winner

Learning medicine is challenging. It involves synthesizing concepts from a diverse range of fields and applying this knowledge to the clinical setting. I support students by making the implicit explicit by providing structures and theory to facilitate reflective practice and experiential learning. I help students deconstruct medicine into foundational components and use these components during every patient interaction. From the first day of medical school, I urge students to think like clinicians rather than learn through rote memory.

About the Award

These awards are named after William Thomas Aikins, the first Dean of the Faculty of Medicine after its reorganization in1887. They are the Faculty’s most prestigious awards in the MD Program. They were established to recognize and formally reward outstanding teachers in the areas of Individual Teaching Performance (Foundations and Clerkship), Development and Use of Educational Innovations, and Course / Program Development and Coordination. Recipients of these awards have significantly contributed to high-quality undergraduate teaching by establishing and integrating new and effective methods of instruction into the curriculum.