Meet MI's Fiona Caprani, Education Programs Officer

In early April, the Department of Medical Imaging’s previous Education Programs Officer, Fiona Caprani, returned to the Department from maternity leave, and has been enthusiastically reintegrating into our education programs.

Prior to her initial start in MI, Fiona completed her undergraduate degree in Russian and Eastern European Studies at the University of Waterloo while spending her summers working at McMaster University’s Health Sciences Department with fundraising and business management. It’s through her work at McMaster that Fiona found herself working at the University of Toronto’s (UofT) Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

“Working in the Department of Medicine (DoM) was a really cool introduction to medical education,” Fiona says. “Since I was mostly overseeing calendars and smaller administrative tasks, I was able to see every aspect of how the department ran, which was a really great experience.”

After a few years in the DoM, Fiona was hired as a Program Coordinator for Internal Medicine, one of the biggest residency programs at UofT, where she worked through the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It was an interesting experience because a lot of hospitals were relying on internal medicine trainees to keep services going,” Fiona recalls. “So, it was a challenge to keep track of who was working where or who was in quarantine, but it was also a really great opportunity to connect with trainees one-to-one.”

Fiona went on to work in UofT’s Office of the Registrar, Faculty of Arts & Sciences, as a Scheduling Officer for a short-term contract before making her way to Medical Imaging in 2021 where she continues to work diligently on the Department’s education programming. “Growing up, I learned a lot about medicine because my grandfather is a pediatrician,” Fiona says. “I never intended to work in the same field, but it was a happy accident that I get to.”

In her current role, Fiona keeps busy working to improve and streamline processes, providing information and guidance to trainees and communicating between the Department’s programs and the Post-Graduate Medical Education (PGME) Office. For Fiona, one of the highlights of her role is her capacity to implement meaningful changes to education programs that positively impact trainees, like her  streamlining of the Canadian Residency Match System (CaRMS) administrative process, making CaRMS easier for both faculty and applicants.

“My family and I have always really valued education, and being able to help foster a love of lifelong learning in our trainees has been a really great experience for me,” says Fiona. “I’ve also really loved the challenge of keeping up with constantly changing education and industry standards. Getting to work with trainees through those challenges is really rewarding.”

Looking forward, Fiona is excited to continue helping trainees, administrators and faculty make the educational landscape manageable and enjoyable for all. “I’m really excited to see how our department can enhance education and training going forward.”