November’s Honour Roll at Unity Health
Every month, staff, researchers, physicians, learners and teams across Unity Health Toronto celebrate important honours, achievements and awards. Congratulations to those who have been recognized this month!
Congratulations to the winners of this year’s Angels Den! This month, six teams of St. Michael’s scientists battled it out for a chance to win $500,000 in funding. Urology’s Dr. Monica Farcas took home the $150,000 Keenan Award for Medical Discovery for her device that suctions kidney stone fragments during surgery, leaving patients stone free. Dr. Laurent Brochard, the Keenan Chair in Critical Care and Acute Respiratory Failure, and Dr. Muhammad Mamdani, the Vice-President of Data Science and Advanced Analytics and the Odette Chair in Advanced Analytics, won the $150,000 Odette Award for Health System Innovation, for designing algorithms that will personalize mechanical ventilation. And gynecologic surgeons Dr. Carmen McCaffrey and Dr. Elizabeth Miazga won over the audience, taking home the Canada Life People’s Choice Award for MyEndo, an app with barrier-free online treatments and educational resources to ease the pain of endometriosis. Congratulations to the winners – and to all the finalists for a riveting competition. Watch all the pitches here. Angels Den is organized by St. Michael’s Foundation with the support of sponsors and donors.
Congratulations to Dr. Venkat Bhat, a psychiatrist and scientist at St. Michael’s, who has received the 2022 Young Investigator Grant from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). His project will compare a course of repeated nitrous oxide (N2O) inhalations to a course of repeated intravenous ketamine infusions for treatment-resistant depression with suicidal ideation. This will be an important step to identify the characteristics distinguishing the two treatments with some potential shared mechanism of action for patients at imminent risk of suicide. This study will provide feasibility, tolerability and preliminary efficacy estimates to aid the design of more definitive studies. Learn more on the AFSP website.
Bhat has also been awarded a New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) from the Government of Canada. The project will develop and evaluate an Automated Engagement Scorecard for research participants living with depression and accessing virtual care for depression. There is existing literature examining three data streams: eye-movement, speech and facial gestures in monitoring engagement in the virtual and gaming environments. This study will examine this technology in virtual mental health care. Learn more on the NFRF website.
Congratulations to Dr. Tali Bogler and Dr. Tara Kiran, family physicians at the St. Michael’s Academic Family Health Team, who were honoured at this year’s Ontario College of Family Physicians Awards. These awards celebrate the outstanding skill, knowledge and dedication of family doctors across Ontario. The recipients showcase the vital work family doctors do to help keep Ontarians healthy.
Bogler received a 2022 Award of Excellence, which recognizes outstanding contributions in a specific area pertaining to the specialty of family medicine: patient care, community service, hospital or health-care institutions, College activities (CFPC or OCFP), teaching, research or other elements of the academic discipline of family medicine.
Kiran received this year’s Leader for a Healthy Ontario Award celebrates an Ontario family physician (or team of family physicians) whose long-standing commitment to leadership over the course of their career/s contributes to the improvement of comprehensive, continuity-based, and patient-centred health care delivered in teams, organizations, and systems.
Learn more on the OCFP website.
Congratulations to Drs. Laurent Brochard, Sidney Kennedy, Lawrence Leiter, Arthur Slutsky, Sharon Straus, and Subodh Verma, who were named among the world’s most influential researchers by Clarivate! The annual list compiled by Clarivate recognizes researchers and social scientists who have shown exceptional influence in their fields, reflected through publication of papers that are frequently cited by their peers. Well done to all!
Dr. Rick Glazier, a scientist at the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions, has been awarded the Peggy Leatt Knowledge and Impact Award by the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IPMHE). This award is given to Canadian scholars for achievements in developing transformative evidence on ways and means to improve healthcare and health systems. Recipients’ efforts have created a key platform of evidence that has shaped health system change. Learn more on the IPMHE website.
Dr. Samir Gupta, a respirologist and scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital, was recognized by his peers with the Medical Post Media Engagement Award. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Gupta became a trusted voice who relayed scientific information and broke down complex concepts to a general audience via regular appearances on CBC News. He pitched and created a series of videos on COVID-19 with the CBC that were intended to reach young people. The videos amassed a whopping 11 million views! Congratulations, well done!
The University of Toronto has received $35 million in critical research infrastructure funding from the federal government to revitalize the Toronto High Containment Facility (THCF), an investment that positions the facility to play a significant role in addressing future pandemic and health threats in Ontario and Canada.
The investment supports efforts to revitalize and expand THCF, transforming it into the largest high-containment academic research centre in Canada. The THCF renewal will be undertaken in collaboration with U of T’s hospital partners, who are also part of the Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium (EPIC): The Hospital for Sick Children, Sinai Health, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Unity Health Toronto and University Health Network. Learn more on the University of Toronto website.
Congratulations to Dr. Dan Werb, a scientist at the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions, whose book, The Invisible Siege: The Rise of Coronaviruses and the Search For a Cure, won the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
This award is given annually for excellence in the category of literary nonfiction, which includes essays, history, biography, memoir, commentary, and criticism. The winning book demonstrates a distinctive voice, as well as a persuasive and compelling command of tone, narrative, style, and technique. Dr. Werb’s book unpacks the history of coronaviruses, what we can learn from the COVID-19 pandemic, and how to prevent future pandemics. Learn more in the Unity Health news story about The Invisible Siege.
St. Joseph’s Health Centre has qualified for our Environmental Excellence Award, Silver Level, for the calendar year 2021. The team was awarded this from Stryker for outstanding performance in environmental sustainability and improving overall hospital quality through medical devices remanufacturing and reprocessing. Congratulations to the St. Joseph’s team!