Kerston Community Educator Award Announced: Karen Firus and Eve Sheftel!

The UBC Health Awards Committee has announced the recipients of the 2023 R. Paul Kerston award for outstanding community educators who have expanded student learning beyond traditional professional boundaries and made a difference to student learning in health and human service programs at UBC.

Karen Firus has been a Health Mentor since 2017. Since then she has been involved in a wide-range of classroom activities for 1st year pharmacy students to 4th year social work students. In these roles, Karen has taught over 500 students from 11 disciplines. Karen is a strong champion for patient involvement in education, using her charisma and passion to promote the benefits in recruitment videos, radio and print media, and in presentations at academic conferences. Congratulations Karen!

Eve Sheftel has been a Health Mentor since 2014. She has mentored 6 cohorts of students from 7 disciplines, welcoming them into her home and her life. Eve has a particular passion for end-of-life care and is a strong advocate for dying with dignity. This has led to her participation in several educational activities focused on end-of-life / palliative care, including a panel presentation for a 3rd year bioethics course. An extract of her panel discussion was turned into a Living Library video used by faculty and students at UBC and BCIT. Congratulations Eve!

Karen and Eve will be honoured at the annual UBC Health Awards reception in June. It is the 10th Anniversary of the Kerston Award. To celebrate, past recipients will be invited to attend the reception for a group photo. Stay tuned!