Richard Reznick, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, has been recognized with a major honour from the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

At a ceremony in Liverpool on Wednesday, Oct. 10, Dr. Reznick was awarded an honorary fellowship. Reserved for surgeons and other distinguished medical practitioners, it is the highest honour the organization can confer.

“I have had a relationship with the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the British surgical community for 25 years, learning from each other, and sharing many common ideas about a joint vision of what modern surgical training looks like.” Dr. Reznick says. “It is an honour to be recognized by such a highly respected institution as an honorary fellow.”

His work with his colleagues in Britain centers around promoting an acceleration of the training needed to become a specialist; both here in Canada and in Britain. Britain sits at the long end of the time it takes to move through medical school, residency and postgraduate training to become a specialist compared to other countries. Much of Dr. Reznick’s work has been to streamline training where appropriate. 

“I sometimes worry that when I show up to speak at meetings in the UK, that they’ll be throwing rotten tomatoes at me. But they don’t,” Dr. Reznick says. “They embrace the fact that there may be a new way to accomplish training in their country, and that accelerated training may have advantages.”

Dr. Reznick was first appointed Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Queen’s in 2010 and was reappointed for a second five-year term in 2016. During his time as dean, Queen’s School of Medicine has embraced new models of teaching and training through the implementation of Competency-Based Medical Education across all of its residency programs.

Dr. Reznick, one of North America’s pre-eminent surgical educators, is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, the American College of Surgeons, and in 2011, he was awarded honorary fellowships from the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.