Susan provides leadership and curricular and program development in clinical education and interprofessional education (IPE). As the inaugural Faculty Lead – Curriculum, Centre for IPE, UT, she and her colleagues led the development and implementation of the requisite IPE curriculum for 11 health science programs. This involved creating IPE core competencies, learning activities and the points for IPE system (PIPEs).
Susan is Past Chair, Board of Directors, Speech-Language & Audiology Canada and was previously Chair (2023 – 2025). She is the Chair, Secretariat, Council for the Accreditation of Canadian University Programs in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology and the Chair, Teaching Stream Committee for the University of Toronto Faculty Association. She is a graduate of the University of Alberta and University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Susan’s research focuses on assessment in clinical education. She co-chaired the development of the Canadian Assessment of Clinical Competence for clinical placements in speech-language pathology and audiology. Susan leads the research on examining its educational impact, acceptability, validity and cost and student perspectives of it.
Susan was an investigator on research projects in faculty development (Effectiveness of a Faculty Development Program on Interprofessional Education: A Randomized Controlled Trial, A Longitudinal Impact Evaluation of a Faculty Development Certificate Program: Educator Identity and Professional Networks) and interprofessional education [Assessment and Evaluation of an Interprofessional Objective Structured Clinical Examination (iOSCE), Key Factors in Interprofessional Education: A Delphi Study, ReCIPE: Resuscitation Competencies in InterProfessional Education] and published a new model of assessment in IPE.
Susan provides clinical education leadership for all four of the clinical placement courses. She teaches in SLP 1509 – Integrating Client, Practitioner and Research Knowledge in Practice. This includes the implementation and development of the IPE curriculum and its integration into the speech-language pathology program. The IPE learning activities, foundational and elective, in this curriculum focus on adaptive expertise and the educational design principles of productive struggle, exposure to meaningful variation across practice contexts and critical dialogue among diverse professional perspectives.
Active Research Funding:
N/A
Awards:
International
2008 | Fellowship - Interprofessional Education in Decision Support/Patients’ Decision Aids, Centre for Informed Choice, The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, New Hampshire, United States of America
2008 | The Medical Teacher Poster Prize, Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE), Prague, Czech Republic
National
2001| Mentorship Award, Canadian Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists, Canada
U of T
2012 – Present | Susan J. Wagner Award for Student Leadership in Interprofessional Education, Centre for Interprofessional Education, University of Toronto
2009 | Inaugural Award of Merit for Outstanding Leadership in Advancing Interprofessional Education, Office of Interprofessional Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
