UBC Orthopaedics is proud to announce that Dr. Bonita Sawatzky, Associate Professor in the Department of Orthopaedics and Director of READI (Respect, Equity, Accessibility, Diversity, and Inclusion), has been appointed as the Canfield Distinguished Scholar in Patient Partnerships at UBC for an 18-month term beginning November 1, 2025.
This distinguished position was created through a generous gift from Carolyn Canfield, a citizen-patient advocate and educator who envisioned a future where healthcare professionals learn directly from patients to improve care, research, and education. “Carolyn wanted to make an impact by training doctors and others in healthcare to include the patient’s voice more,” explains Dr. Sawatzky.
“It’s about being better at talking to patients and understanding their point of view.”
Dr. Bonita Sawatzky
Read: Distinguished scholar position created to advance patient and community partnerships
Dr. Sawatzky has spent her career amplifying patient voices. From supervising UBC’s Health Mentors Program, where patients teach interdisciplinary student teams about living with chronic conditions, to conducting spinal cord injury research at ICORD, her work has consistently focused on bridging the gap between healthcare providers and the lived experiences of patients.
As Canfield Distinguished Scholar, Dr. Sawatzky plans to take this work further—beyond undergraduate education into residency and faculty development.
“We do great things in first and second-year training, but what happens when they become residents? What are we doing to include patient-educators in faculty development?” she asks. Her vision includes creating educational modules and strategies that embed patient-educators into surgical education.
Dr. Sawatzky recently attended the international conference Where’s the Patient Voice? connecting with global leaders who share her passion for patient partnerships. Over the next two years, she hopes to build momentum for this work at UBC and beyond.
“If I can make a difference in opening the eyes of the surgical group to understand how much more they can learn from the patient-educators, I think it will improve healthcare even more,” she reflects.
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Sawatzky on this well-deserved appointment and in supporting her efforts to make healthcare more inclusive, empathetic, and patient-centered.
