Conflict resolution at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine: The Pelican and the sign of the triangle

In 1997 the University of Ottawa Medical School adopted a conflict-resoluti on policy for informally dealing with complaints of abuse, harassment and i ntimidation, sexual harassment, and scientific misconduct or misappropriati on of intellectual property. In collaboration with the university's Faculty of Law, general conflict-resolution workshops were given for faculty and a dministration and mediation training was provided to medical faculty design ated "complaint officers" under the policy. In this article, the authors de scribe the policy and training and then analyze the first major incident ar ising after the policy's implementation: the publication of disrespectful m isogynist material in The Pelican, a medical student society newsletter. Th e Pelican incident is used as a "lessons learned" case study both in terms of its multiple outcomes and as an opportunity to pinpoint some important p olicy and practical considerations that emerged in implementing a conflict- resolution policy, The article also describes the results of a learning env ironment survey conducted after the Pelican incident.