Recipients

Jory Mitchell has been a passionate community educator with UBC Health for eight years through his involvement with the UBC Interprofessional Health Mentors Program, Patient and Community Voices Workshop, Living Library, and Integrated Curriculum. He imparts his knowledge and wisdom as a caregiver with humility, kindness, compassion, and humour. He talks to students about the challenges as well as positive encounters within the health system, recognizing the value for students to hear both perspectives. Jory consistently engages with students, asks thought-provoking questions, and encourages the future health professionals to advocate for improved care. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing autonomy and individuality in patient care and the need for interprofessional collaboration. Jory inspires students to develop new ways to collaborate using each other’s strengths and across practice areas and to consider how to be better practitioners, with the goal to improve healthcare on both individual and systems levels.

Anja Lanz has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to student learning and professional development through her involvement with the UBC Interprofessional Health Mentors Program for the past 10 years. She has passionately educated and connected with a diverse range of students from different health disciplines on topics such as patient-centred care and navigating the healthcare system. She is an engaged teacher and strong advocate for better healthcare in BC. Her knowledge, perspectives, and insights are helping to shape the values and decisions of future healthcare professionals. Anja aims to empower students to be strong advocates for change and communicates powerfully about the impact that future healthcare providers can have in supporting patients. Her work through the Health Mentors program has inspired students to be more compassionate, knowledgeable, and optimistic about their patients’ health needs.

Lelainia Lloyd has been a patient educator through the UBC Interprofessional Health Mentors Program for more than 10 years. She was a member of the steering committee that helped shape the direction and scope of the program. Lelainia shares her lived experience as an individual with a rare disease to help students learn about patient-centred care and patient advocacy. She teaches the value of interprofessional practice by talking about her interactions with various health professionals to help students learn about their role in relation to the roles of others. For several years, Lelainia was also a patient educator in the Faculties of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Medicine. She helped first-year pharmacy students develop a foundation of patient-centred care and provided a safe space for physical therapy students to develop their skills and confidence in patient interviewing and assessment.

Bruce Raber is a health mentor with the UBC Interprofessional Health Mentors Program, where he strives to provide thought-provoking learning experiences for students in an open, encouraging, and non-judgmental environment. He has shared his experiences as a patient, posed challenging questions, and taught students about the importance of collaboration, the power of language, and the impact that healthcare providers can have on an individual with a chronic condition. Bruce was also an inaugural patient co-facilitator for the UBC Health Integrated Curriculum workshops on collaborative decision-making, helped shape how patient stories would be incorporated, and selected elements of his healthcare journey to engage interprofessional students in discussions about collaborative approaches to care. Bruce’s passion and enthusiasm has inspired many of his students to seek to improve the healthcare system and create systemic change.

As UBC Health Mentor since 2014, Mandy Young provides students with a unique opportunity to learn through her lived experience as a caregiver of a child with a rare genetic disorder and autism and instills in them the importance of patient-centred care. She has mentored seven cohorts of students from eight programs, including Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry, Genetic Counselling, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Pharmacy, and Speech-Language Pathology. Mandy also co-developed an interprofessional workshop about caregiver experiences as well as workshops about health advocacy, attended by more than 400 students in a range of health disciplines. Her passion and work with students have been vital to their growth as members of the health field.

Justice for Girls was founded in 1999 in response to national and international calls for gender-specific programs and services for teenage girls. Since then, they have reached over 1,000 UBC students, providing workshops and community-based experiential learning opportunities for students from UBC's Health, Law, and Education Faculties.

Jon Collins has mentored three cohorts of students from genetic counselling, nursing, medicine, occupational therapy, and pharmacy. He is also a member of Arthritis Research Canada’s Patient Advisory Board and co-chair of Reaching Out with Arthritis Research (ROAR). 

Stephen Reid has been a volunteer patient with the medical undergraduate clinical skills program and a Health Mentor to UBC students since 2014. As a volunteer patient, Stephen has helped dozens of medical students learn and practice medical history taking and physical exam skills. As a Health Mentor, Stephen has mentored three cohorts of students from genetic counselling, nursing, medicine, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and pharmacy. 

Marge and Eric Johnson have taught students in the UBC Health Mentors program about mental illness since 2012. They have opened their home and welcomed students into their lives. Working with students in this way helps students develop practical skills for working with patients and families as well as insights about health advocacy. Marge gives presentations to nursing, social work, and physical therapy students titled: “Mental Illness – A Mother’s Perspective” and “What Hurts, What Helps – A guide for professionals on how to work with families”. Marge has also been a volunteer patient for physical therapy and pharmacy students.

Ramon Montecillo has been a Health Mentor since 2016. He volunteers as a peer support worker at the rehabilitation centre where he once recovered in order to help fellow stroke survivors. His students say he is an “inspiration” and appreciate how honest and forthcoming he is about his health care experiences and the factors that allowed him to get to a “new normal.” His teachings highlight the support of his family and his health care team which provide students with a real world model of patient and family-centred care to apply in practice. By sharing his patient experience he inspires students to be more empathetic with patients and to provide a high level of care in their practice.

Chris Hofley began his partnership with UBC in 2011 when he volunteered to mentor students in the Health Mentors Program. Since then he has mentored 4 cohorts of students from 6 different discplines and taken on many additional roles including panelist, presenter, co-author and steering committee member. As a member of the Health Mentors Steering Committee Chris has played an important role in the program’s development, implementation, and dissemination. He presented at Collaborating Across Borders in 2013 and published a paper in the journal The Clinical Teacher in 2014.

Gerry Oleman is an Elder, knowledge keeper, mentor, role model, collaborator, ceremonialist, story teller, healer, educator. He has been a teacher at UBC for over 15 years, sharing his story of his residential school experiences with medical, dentistry, and social work students as well as teaching family practice residents. Gerry facilitated UBC’s Truth and Reconciliation process at the UBC Longhouse and is the Elder in Residence for UBC’s Summer Science – an initiative that brings Indigenous high school students to UBC for one week of science and cultural activities.

Darren Lauscher has been a teacher, mentor, and course facilitator with UBC since 2012. He has served on numerous planning and advisory committees at the university, including the UBC Health Council. Darren is also involved in research projects at the provincial and the national level and serves on behalf of HIV/AIDS organizations with the McLaren Housing Society of BC to provide safe, secure and affordable housing and support services for families and people living with HIV/AIDS.

Paula Carr, a Community Strategist and Intercultural Neighborhood Developer with Collingwood Neighborhood House, has collaborated with UBC since 2004. She helped produce an award winning film titled, “Where Strangers Became Neighbours” that has been used in 6 or more UBC courses. This film illustrates the importance of an intercultural community development approach when working with a team of community partners and diverse neighbourhood populations. Since 2011, Paula has been involved in a project called INTERactive where she has supervised numerous UBC students doing community-based experiential learning projects. Paula is also co-author of a chapter that is a case study of the Interactive project.

Mo Korchinski is a founding member of Women in2 Healing (Wi2H), a not-for-profit community-based organization of formerly incarcerated women, volunteers and academics who seek to improve the physical, emotional and social healing of women inside and outside of prison by engaging in participatory research processes. She visits schools, colleges and universities to share her story and findings from Wi2H research projects with students.

Tiare Laporte helped develop a speech and audiology course, titled: Approaches to audiology and speech-language pathology for persons of First Nations, Metis or Inuit heritage. She facilitated community learning experiences for over 160 audiology and speech-language pathology students and serves on the school's Advisory Council.