Gurjit Sandhu, PhD

Dr. Gurjit Sandhu is a faculty member in the Department of Surgery. Dr. Sandhu completed her B.A. in 1996 from the University of British Columbia, Canada and earned her PhD in 2006 from Queen's University, Canada. She was the Educational Developer for Postgraduate Medical Education at Queen's University before joining the faculty at the University of Michigan in November 2013. Dr. Sandhu's research concentrates on progressive entrustment and graduated autonomy in surgical education. More broadly, her work focuses on the scholarship of teaching and learning, specifically looking at professional education, teaching methods and assessment. Dr. Sandhu also uses her strengths as a qualitative researcher to support her work on social accountability in medical education, health equity and disparities, and global health.

Dr. Sandhu has established herself as a national leader in surgical education with a focus on teaching and learning. She has identified faculty entrustment behaviors, resident entrustability behaviors, and the interaction between surgeon and trainee as a critical area of study for optimizing training. This work has been funded institutionally by Graduate Medical Education Innovation Grants and nationally by the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation. Her focus on entrustment as it informs the development of learner autonomy in a supervised setting is at the forefront of calls for competency-based education. Her work has augmented the way faculty think about and approach teaching. Furthermore, surgery residents better understand their roles with respect to driving their own education forward. As the American Board of Surgery explores models of competency-based education through a national pilot study, Dr. Sandhu’s work has already helped prepare the Department of Surgery for fluid implementation. While entrustment and intraoperative teaching are central to her research interests, she continues to pursue additional projects with medical student and youth from communities that are unrepresented in medicine. Investigations in these areas have also yielded publications and presentations both regionally and nationally. Most recently, Dr. Sandhu has led a team on the study of psychological safety and wellbeing in the clinical learning environment. The first phase of this national project focused on residents, fellows, and faculty in surgical specialties. The second phase of work will expand across medical specialties. There is substantial interest in this domain, and this is the first large scale study of its kind. The scope of Dr. Sandhu’s scholarship has enabled her work collaboratively with many colleagues and mentor a number of medical students and residents on a breadth of educational studies.