Med CPD Provider Spotlight – Osler

Osler: Putting Learning and Professional Connection at the Centre of Medical Education

Continuing to learn is an important part of a doctor’s professional life. But professional development should be about more than completing activities or recording hours. It should also create opportunities to reflect, build knowledge, exchange ideas and explore how healthcare professionals make decisions.

This philosophy is central to Osler, a medical education provider that aims to make learning time as useful as possible. Through educational resources, interactive learning tools and its professional community, Osler offers different ways for doctors to engage with ongoing learning and connect with other healthcare professionals.

Who is Osler?

Osler was founded by intensivist Todd Fraser, whose longstanding interest in medical education is closely connected to patient safety and improved patient outcomes.

For more than 10 years, Osler has provided educational and governance services to universities, hospitals and individuals. Its work reflects a commitment to developing practical solutions to the challenges people encounter in education and professional learning.

Todd is particularly interested in how people behave in clinical settings, what drives their decisions and how they interact with others. These questions inform his interest in turning insights about human behaviour into learning opportunities for healthcare professionals.

Osler’s team brings together business professionals, platform developers and educators. This combination supports the development of educational services and digital tools designed to respond to practical learning needs.

An approach focused on useful learning

Osler’s guiding principle is to make learning time as useful as possible. Rather than treating professional development as a task to complete, the organisation looks for ways to make learning more engaging, interactive and relevant to the people undertaking it.

This approach can be seen in the range of educational formats Osler has developed. These include case discussions, simulation-based activities and opportunities to seek feedback on professional experiences.

Different formats offer different ways to engage with learning. A case discussion can provide an opportunity to consider an issue from multiple perspectives, while a simulation allows repeated practice with feedback. Seeking input from a colleague or supervisor can introduce another perspective on an experience.

Osler also recognises that professional learning can happen through connection with others. Its community provides another way for members to exchange ideas, collaborate and learn from different experiences.

Learning from clinical cases and practice

Clinical cases can provide opportunities to examine the issues that arise in healthcare and consider how different factors influence decisions.

Osler’s Case Review webinar series was developed after doctors reported difficulties completing measuring outcomes hours. The series allows members to listen to cases discussed by a panel of experts, who explore the issues raised and bring different perspectives to the discussion.

Osler has also developed an advanced life support (ALS) simulator. This tool gives users opportunities to practise data interpretation, decision-making and algorithm use, with specific feedback each time. Participants can repeat the activity, making it possible to revisit the task and learn through further practice.

These initiatives demonstrate Osler’s interest in using different learning formats to help healthcare professionals engage with cases, decisions and feedback.

Osler Community: Connecting healthcare professionals

Professional learning does not always happen in a formal educational session. Conversations with colleagues, exchanging ideas and learning from other people’s experiences can also introduce useful perspectives.

Osler Community was developed to help members connect in a professional, secure environment where they can learn, collaborate, support one another and share ideas.

Osler reports that its membership has grown to more than 26,000 people across the globe. This creates opportunities to connect healthcare professionals beyond their immediate workplace or usual professional networks.

The current forum-style format provides a starting point for professional interaction. Members can engage with others, discuss ideas and explore opportunities to collaborate. Osler is also interested in developing further ways for members to interact and participate.

For doctors working across different settings, roles and specialties, a professional community can provide another avenue for exchanging perspectives. A conversation may raise a new question, introduce a different approach or prompt someone to explore a topic further through their own learning.

The value of a community comes from the participation of its members. Osler’s aim is to provide an environment where these professional interactions can take place securely and constructively.

Supporting learning throughout a doctor’s career

Osler’s educational tools and community are intended to support doctors with different interests, backgrounds and levels of experience, from junior doctors to senior clinicians, GPs, specialists and career medical officers.

The organisation has also developed logbook functionality that allows doctors to seek feedback from a peer, colleague, supervisor or patient for each case entered into their patient or procedure logbook.

This creates an opportunity to incorporate other perspectives into the learning process and connect professional activity with reflection.

Together, Osler’s educational activities, feedback tools and community offer different ways to engage with professional development. Structured learning can help explore a particular topic, while conversations and feedback can introduce new perspectives and questions to consider.

Looking ahead

Osler continues to look for ways to improve access to education and develop tools that respond to the needs of healthcare professionals.

For Todd Fraser, questions about behaviour, decision-making and interactions in clinical medicine remain a source of interest. Understanding these aspects of professional practice can provide new ways to think about learning and how it can be made more useful.

Osler Community is another part of this approach, with the organisation exploring further ways to help members connect, share ideas and collaborate.

Explore Osler on Med CPD

Osler brings together medical education, interactive learning tools and opportunities for professional connection. Its focus is on making learning practical, relevant and useful for healthcare professionals.

Explore Osler on Med CPD

To learn more about Osler and its community, visit the Osler Website.