Glenn Regehr, PhD
Associate Director, Research
Senior Scientist
Glenn Regehr obtained his PhD in cognitive psychology from McMaster University, and during the last year of his PhD, he trained as a research associate in medical education at McMaster University Medical Centre. In 1993, Dr. Regehr joined the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto where he cofounded the Wilson Centre for Research in Health Professional Education and served as the Associate Director until 2009. From March to December of 2008 he was seconded to the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine to serve as the Acting Assistant Dean for the newly formed Academy for Innovation in Medical Education, where he participated in the founding of the University of Ottawa Simulation and Skills Centre. Since July 2009, Dr. Regehr has been at UBC as Senior Scientist and founding Associate Director of Research at CHES and Professor (Department of Surgery). He also holds appointments with the University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Medical Education, and the University of Maastricht School of Health Education.
Research Interests
In our construction and implementation of educational interventions we tend to underestimate the agency of our learners and teachers. Thus, we focus on the intended or espoused curriculum (how it ought to operate in theory) rather than on the enacted curriculum (the espoused curriculum as filtered though the goals, beliefs and values of individual teachers) or the experienced curriculum (the enacted curriculum as filtered through the goals, beliefs and values of individual learners). Acknowledging the agency of individual learners and teachers requires us to treat the educational process as a complex adaptive system, and therefore to attend to how our educational plans play out through the everyday interactions of learners and teachers with curricular expectations. The collaborative programs of research in which I have been involved recently have explored how individual goals, beliefs and values create unexpected complexities for the idealized version of the espoused curriculum.
Publication Highlights
Shariff F, Hatala R, Regehr G. The nature of learning from simulation: Now I know it, now I’ll do it, I’ll work on that. Med Educ. 2020 Jul;54(7):652-659.
Bourgeois-Law G, Regehr G, Teunissen PW, Varpio L. Educator, judge, public defender: Conflicting roles for remediators of practising physicians. Med Educ. 2020 Dec;54(12):1171-1179.
Tam J, Wadhwa A, Martimianakis MA, Fernando O, Regehr G. The role of previously undocumented data in the assessment of medical trainees in clinical competency committees. Perspect Med Educ. 2020 Oct;9(5):286-293.
Farrell LM, Buydens S, Bourgeois-Law G, Regehr G. Experiential learning, collaboration and reflection: key ingredients in longitudinal faculty development. Can Med Educ J. 2021 Jun 30;12(3):82-91.
Ilgen JS, Regehr G, Teunissen PW, Sherbino J, de Bruin ABH. Skeptical self-regulation: Resident experiences of uncertainty about uncertainty. Med Educ. 2021 Jun;55(6):749-757.