Presentation ceremony at the NAPCRG 2024 Annual Meeting, Québec City, Canada
The Distinguished Mentor Award is intended to acknowledge outstanding mentorship. The recipient must be a NAPCRG member and contribute to the development of other researchers. The distinguished mentor will epitomize mentorship. They will demonstrate support, guidance and promotion of their mentee(s) which occurs beyond their job description.
NAPCRG
Transcript
Kyle Eggleton: I’m pleased to be the nominator for this award to Felicity Goodyear-Smith.
Felicity Goodyear-Smith is a remarkable person.
Selfless, passionate, empathic are some personal qualities that spring to mind.
These characteristics also make her a remarkable research mentor.
A remarkable research mentor is someone whose personal attributes means that they are mentor for researchers rather than a researcher happy to mentor.
Felicity’s approach has always been to build people up, to guide them in their research journey, to see them develop, and to celebrate their successes and she does this in a selfless way.
My first interactions with Felicity was when I was a beginning researcher interested in academia but not sure how to go about doing it.
Felicity was my Head of Department and she provided me with numerous opportunities to extend my skill set. These included linking me the collaborators, encouraging me to apply for overseas fellowships, and suggesting conferences to attend. She brought me research projects that she was involved with and guided me through grant writing, ethics application, study design, data analysis and writing.
Felicity would offer me opportunities, to write book chapters, contribute editorials and join committees and organizations.
Her latest research taught to me was how to wash my socks while attending conferences!
[Laughter]
Her interest in me extended to me as a person. She would check on my wellbeing and be someone who I could talk to about stresses in my life as well as have a beer with.
Her mentoring relationships extend across the globe. She has mentored beginning researchers in numerous countries, often taking an interest in primary care physicians and researchers in developing countries where there’s little structural primary care.
Felicity taken a strategic approach in mentoring by addressing some of the barriers that early career researches face. This has included writing research methods books to guide researchers, being involved with WONCA and establishing an academic journal, the Journal of Primary Healthcare, with a purpose of supporting researchers in New Zealand.
Felicity was awarded a Distinguished Fellowship by the Royal College of GPs in 2016. This is the supreme award of the college. Her award ceremony citation stated that she’s inspired under graduate general practice teaching, developed postgraduate primary healthcare programs and remains a conscience of primary health care.
It’s my pleasure to have nominated my friend and colleague Felicity Goodyear-Smith to the NAPCRG Distinguished Research Mentor Award.
[Applause]
Malakai ‘Ofanoa: We are going to to sing a song. In New Zealand following a speech, then we call it a waiata, and we are going to sing a song today.
[Music]
Felicity: Thank you Kyle, thank you Malakai, Siobhan, Sam. Kyle for nominating me, Malakai, Siobhan, Sam for supporting the nomination as well. And thank you NAPCRG awards committee for for giving me this award.
I’m very humbled to receive it.
I had two important mentors early in my career who helped shape me. One at medical school; physician Rex Hunton, taught me the importance of the holistic approach to consider people’s physical, mental, family, social, spiritual wellbeing, as in the context of their lives.
And then my very first family medicine, general practice role was as a GP in South Wales and the neighboring GP with whom I shared after-hours call was Dr Julian Tudor-Hart. He taught me that good medical and social care tends to be least available for people who need it most.
This led to me work clinically with high populations such as impoverished communities, prisons, and a City Mission.
I accidentally morphed into an academic later in life and research helped me engage in one of my other great loves which is writing.
I’ve been very blessed in my life and in my career and it’s been an honor and privilege to support more junior colleagues. I’ve gained far more than I have ever given for watching them develop their skills and take flight.
