Lara Varpio

Adjunct Research Professor (Applied Linguistics and Discourse Studies)

Degrees:B.A. (McMaster), M.A. (Waterloo), Ph.D. (Waterloo)

Biography

Lara Varpio is an active member of several academic communities and medical education committees and organizations. In addition to being an Adjunct Professor with Carleton University’s School of Linguistics and Language Studies (SLaLS), Lara’s primary affiliation is as an Assistant Professor with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (Maryland, USA), and she is also a Research Fellow with the Wilson Centre for Research in Education at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine.  Her PhD dissertation was selected as the winner of the 2008 Conference on College Composition and Communication Outstanding Dissertation Award in Technical Communication (USA).

Dr. Varpio’s program of research investigates Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as they are used in interprofessional healthcare teams. Her current work focuses on the use of mobile alerting technologies in pediatric medicine, the clinical use (and misuse) of Electronic Patient Records, and the development of theory addressing interprofessional communication via communication technologies. She works in close collaboration with many healthcare professionals and with Health Informatics departments across Canada and the United States.

Research Interests

  • Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Medicine
  • Interprofessional Communication and Education
  • Activity Theory
  • Actor-Network Theory
  • Rhetorical Genre Theory
  • Visual Rhetoric

Recent Publications and Conference Presentations

Varpio, L., Hall, P., Lingard, L., Schryer, C.F. (2008). Interprofessional Communication and Medical Error: A Reframing of Research Questions and Approaches, Academic Medicine. In press.

Kuziemsky, C., Varpio, L., Hall, L., Casimiro, L., Leipe, E., Weaver, L., Jelley, W., Cragg, B., Brajtman, S., Barnes, P., MacDonald, C., Poitras, S. (2008).  Health Information System Design to Support a Nursing Centered Model of Care. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics. In press.

Varpio, L., Spafford, M., Schryer, C.F., Lingard, L. (2007). Seeing and Listening: A Visual and Social Analysis of Optometric Record Keeping Practices, Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 21 (4), 343-375.

Varpio, L., Schryer, C.F., Lehoux, P., Lingard, L. (2006). Working Off the Record: Physicians’ and Nurses’ Transformations of EPR-based Patient Information, Academic Medicine, 81 (10) (Suppl), 35-39.

Summary of Recent Grant Capture *

  • As Principal/Lead Investigator =  $220,988
  • As Co-Investigator = $2,142,593
    *Includes only grants won and/or active in 2008

Peer-Reviewed Paper Presentations

International
Varpio, L., Hall, P. Lingard, L., Schryer, C.F. (Nov 2008). Interprofessional Communication and Medical Error: A Reframing of Research Questions and Approaches. Association of American Medical Colleges. Research in Medical Education. San Antonio, Texas.

Varpio, L., Schryer, C.F., Lingard, L. (Nov. 2006). Working Off the Record: Physicians’ and Nurses’ Transformations of Electronic Patient Record-based Information. Association of American Medical Colleges. Research in Medical Education. Seattle, Washington.

Varpio, L., Schryer, C.F, Lingard, L. (March 2006). Electronic Patient Records: Using Communications Research to Address a Healthcare Problem. Association of Teachers of Technical Writing. Chicago, Illinois.

Canadian
McLean L, Conlin A, Varpio L. (June 2008) Is the Podcast medium, as viewed on a MP3 player, suitable for viewing and simultaneously commenting on surgical procedures? Canadian Society of Otolaryngology Annual Meeting, Jasper, Alberta.

Jalali, A., Mioduszewski, M., Gauthier, M., Varpio, L. (May 2008). Democracy in Medical Education: A Wiki by students for students. Canadian Medical Education Conference. Montreal, Quebec.

Petrosoniak, A., McCarthy, A., Varpio, L. (May 2008). Global Health Curriculum: Meeting needs at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Canadian Medical Education Conference. Montreal, Quebec.

Touchie, C., Humphrey-Murto, S., Friedlich, M., Varpio, L.. (May 2008). Acceptability of Technical Skills Assessment in Internal Medicine Residency Training: A Qualitative Approach. Canadian Medical Education Conference. Montreal, Quebec.

Awards

Outstanding Dissertation Award in Technical Communication, American National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), 2008.
Alumni Gold Medal, University of Waterloo, 2007