PORTIA KALUN

Portia is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour. She is interested in how we can optimize skill learning, especially within the surgical education context. Portia’s doctoral work uses evidence from psychology and sports science to explore efficient ways to train surgical residents using observation. She is exploring the types of performances that residents should observe and the role of feedback in learning from observing others. Aside from her doctoral work, Portia has worked on projects exploring the use of simulation for learning and assessment, the implementation of entrustment-based assessments, and the impact of visual-spatial abilities on learning.

Portia has presented her work at several local, national, and international conferences, including the International Conference on Residency Education (ICRE), International Association of Medical Education (AMEE), Canadian Conference on Medical Education (CCME), and the Annual Meeting of the Association for Surgical Education (ASE).

To learn more about Portia’s work—both in and out of the lab—please visit her LinkedIn or personal website. You can find Portia on Twitter here. For a summary of her work on observational learning, refer to the following page.

To learn more about Portia’s publications, please visit her Google scholar page.

  • Kalun, P., Dunn, K., Wagner, N., & Sonnadara, R.R. (2020). Recent evidence on visual-spatial ability in surgical education: A scoping review: Des preuves récentes sur les habiletés visuo- spatiales pour la formation en chirurgie: revue exploratoire. Canadian Medical Education Journal. https://doi.org/10.36834/cmej.69051

  • McKinnon, V.E., Kalun, P., McRae, M.H., Sonnadara, R.R., & Fahim, C. (2018). A shift on the horizon: A systematic review of assessment tools for plastic surgery trainees. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 142(2), 217e-231e.

  • Kalun, P., Wagner, N., Yan, J., Nousiainen, M.T., & Sonnadara, R.R. (2018). Surgical simulation training in orthopedics: current insights. Advances in Medical Education and Practice, 9, 125-131.[PK2]