Thirza Carpenter

Area of Study / Keywords

About

Personal Statement:

I practice General Internal Medicine because I am fascinated by the complexities of human physiology. I believe that a holistic approach to medical care and a strong patient-physician therapeutic alliance provides enormous benefits to patients, both in terms of disease management and in quality of life. My clinical practice focuses on general internal medicine issues, thrombosis and hypertension. I also perform bone marrow biopsies, in conjunction with the division of hematology. I am interested in new approaches to medical education, specifically Competence By Design, which emphasizes coaching and feedback between supervisors and trainees. 

Thirza Carpenter graduated from and completed her core general internal medicine and clinical general internal residencies at the University of Alberta. She was appointed clinical lecturer in 2015 and promoted to assistant clinical professor in 2018.

Leadership and Collaborations:

As Competence Committee chair for the GIM Division, Dr. Carpenter co-led the foundations for the division’s Competence by Design approach to medical education, launched in 2019.

Clinical Interests

Dr. Carpenter is an attending physician and fulltime medical staff at the University of Alberta Hospital.

Research

Dr. Carpenter’s research interests include hypertension and health care access and utilization. She is part of a research team that assessed patient perceptions of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring with results published in The Journal of Clinical Hypertension. She co-published a review of a rheumatology triage system in Clinical Rheumatology and has given presentations on the topic at Canadian Rheumatology Association annual scientific meetings. 

Teaching

Dr. Carpenter is a lecturer and examiner in internal medicine and a preceptor for clinical skills instruction, in the classroom and on the wards. She is also an academic advisor and mentor for medical students and internal medicine residents. 

Sholzberg M., Tang G.H., Rahhal H., Alhamzah M., Kreuziger L.B., Áinle F.N., Alomran F., Alayed K., Alsheef M., Alsumait F., Pompilio C.E., Sperlich C., Tangri S., Tang T., Jaksa P., Suryanarayan D., Almarshoodi M., Castellucci L.A., James P.D., Lillicrap D., Carrier M., Beckett A., Colovos C., Jayakar J., Arsenault M.P., Wu C., Doyon K., Andreou E.R., Dounaevskaia V., Tseng E.K., Lim G., Fralick M., Middeldorp S., Lee A.Y.Y., Zuo F., Da Costa B.R., Thorpe K.E., Negri E.M., Cushman M., Jüni P.

The BMJ. 2021 October; 375 10.1136/bmj.n2400