Shaping Our Medical Education Journey - College of Medicine ...

Health Training
in French (HTiF) or Formation Santé en Français (FSeF)
A committee of the social accountability division
Language barriers have been shown to reduce participation in health promotion and prevention activities
as well as interfere with the quality of patient-practitioner communication. For example, compelling
and consistent evidence highlights that linguistic and cultural barriers result in an increased risk of late
presentation at diagnostic, unnecessary procedures, poorer patient understanding of prescribed treatment
and lower patient satisfaction, which may lead to increased wait times and poorer health outcomes. With
almost 20,000 individuals who speak French at home in Saskatchewan, a higher proportion of Francophone
seniors compared to what is found in the majority population, and an increasing number of newcomers and
immigrants whose first official language is French, health services and clinical care in French are critical.
As such, the Health Training in French (HTiF) committee was formed at the U of S, with coordination based
in the department of Community Health and Epidemiology in
the College of Medicine.
HTiF committee membership includes faculty who are mentors
and a network of 50 health sciences students, including 38
from the College of Medicine, who want to improve their
French language skills and seek opportunities to train in
French. The HTiF works in collaboration with organizations,
such as the Réseau Santé en Français de la Saskatchewan
(Saskatchewan Network for Health services in French), and the
Institut Français, University of Regina, to identify how to better
respond to the needs of the francophone population in the
province.
The committee’s overall goal is to promote better access to
health services for the minority official language community in
Saskatchewan. Specific objectives are to:
1. Augment and strengthen patient-provider’s
communication in French in a variety of clinical settings;
2. Identify and network clinicians and other healthcare
professionals who speak French and can offer clinical and
research training opportunities in French;
3. Network and enhance the training of students and residents who are francophones or francophiles.
HTiF recently facilitated the placement of two third-year medical students in Francophone clinical electives.
One learner received training in pediatric psychiatry at l’Université de Montréal, while the second student
was able to train in family medicine in Edmonton.
On March 17, 2011 in Regina and March 18, 2011 in Saskatoon, two medical terminology workshops were
facilitated, by Dr. Jean Roy, assistant dean and director of the Francophone Office at the Faculty of Medicine
in Ottawa. Twenty specialists, family physicians, medical students and other health professionals enjoyed
this problem-based learning event in a supportive and interprofessional setting.
18 C O M M U N I Q U É College of Medicine • University of Saskatchewan
s
The directory of health professionals speaking French was
updated in November 2010 and can be found at the following link:
http://www.rsfs.ca/opFichier/_rK15gPcUhEkJ_12347.pdf