Awards and events
Did you know that there are approximately 10,000 employees; 1,300 physicians; 6,000 students; and 450 researchers across our health network? This collective group is our biggest asset and our greatest strength. And each one of us has an impact on – and is impacted by – teaching and learning. Whether we learn from each other formally or informally, education is at the heart of the work we do every day.
In 2019, each of our three sites recognized the value of education in the development of our people with academic achievement days, among many other education-related celebrations, during our first-ever Education Week. While these events looked a bit different from site-to-site, the goal was the same: to highlight and celebrate the outstanding work of our people who commit themselves to the roles of teachers and learners. Let’s take a look at our award recipients from this year.
- Medical Education Achievement Day at St. Michael’s
- Health Disciplines Recognition Day at St. Michael’s
- Academic Achievement Day at St. Joseph’s
- Innovation Awards at Providence
- Peer-nominated compassionate educators
Medical Education Achievement Day at St. Michael’s – 2019
Every year, St. Michael’s honours its physician educators at the Education Achievement Day Award ceremony. The annual breakfast ceremony is hosted by the vice-president, Education and pays tribute to the exceptional achievements in medical education by physicians, medical residents and staff.
The award recipients, nominees, faculty, learners and staff are making significant contributions to our education mission to be global leaders in health professional and systems education.
Congratulations to the 2019 recipients:
| Award(s) | Award Winner(s) |
| Board of Directors | |
| Complete Physician Award | Dr. Gordon Arbess |
| Student Centre & DFCM | |
| Philip Berger Advocacy Award | Dr. Lauren Welsh |
| Family & Community Medicine | |
| Award for Outstanding Contribution to Medical Education | Dr. Thea Weisdorf |
| Dr. Irv Gora Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring Award | Dr. Holly Knowles |
| Collaborator Award For Outstanding Contribution to Medical Education | Dr. Sherri Storm |
| Ophthalmology | |
| Surgical Ophthalmology Teaching Award | Dr. David T.W. Wong |
| Medical Ophthalmology Teaching Award | Dr. Jonathan A. Micieli |
| Dr. Michael Shea Commitment to Ophthalmology Education Award | Dr. Peter K. Girschek |
| Surgery | |
| Donald J. Currie Undergraduate Teaching Award | Dr. Sunit Das |
| William Horsey Postgraduate Teaching Award | Dr. Bobby Yanagawa |
| Jameel Ali Continuing Education Award | Dr. Ralph George |
| Squires-Hyland Trust James Waddell Mentoring Award | Dr. Mohammed Al-Omran |
| Leo Mahoney Resident Teaching Award | Dr. Katie Armstrong |
| Anesthesia | |
| William Noble Fellowship Teaching Award | Dr. Greg Hare |
| Art Dunn Postgraduate Education Award | Dr. John Hanlon |
| Art Dunn Undergraduate Education Award | Dr. David Sussman |
| Pediatrics | |
| Excellence in Neonatal Intensive Care Teaching | Dr. Douglas Campbell |
| Excellence in Ambulatory Pediatric Teaching | Dr. Ra Han |
| Emergency Medicine | |
| Emergency Medicine Teacher of the Year | Dr. Amy Cheng |
| Medicine | |
| Dr. Murray Muirhead Postgraduate Awards | Dr. Khuloud Aldhaheri Dr. Robert Vanner Dr. Danielle Buell Dr. Sagar Rohailla |
| Dr. J.J. Connon Award | Dr. Nikki Goldberg |
| Outstanding Postgraduate Teacher Awards | Dr. Karen D’Silva Dr. Yunna Lee Dr. Iqwal Mangat Dr. Reena Pattani Dr. Aaron Thompson Dr. Eric Tseng Dr. Natalie Wong |
| Dr. Gerald Wong Award | Dr. Reena Pattani |
| Dr. Luigi Casella Award | Dr. Akshay Bagai |
| Obstetrics & Gynecology | |
| Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching | Dr. Tatiana Freire-Lizama |
| Sustained Excellence in Postgraduate Teaching | Dr. Mark Yudin |
| Paul McCleary Award | Dr. Elaine Shore |
| Antonio Cecutti Prize | Dr. Siddhi Mathur |
| Medical Imaging | |
| Professor Ronald W. McCallum Award for Excellence in the Promotion of Quality, Innovation and Research in Medical Imaging | Dr. Errol Colak |
| Professor William J. Weiser Award for Excellence in Teaching of Medical Imaging Residents and Fellows | Dr. Gevork Mnatzakanian |
| Laboratory Medicine | |
| Kalman Kovacs Award for Undergraduate Teaching | Dr. Hala Faragalla |
| Bernadette Garvey Award for Postgraduate Teaching | Dr. Phil Connelly |
| Arthur Vandenbroucke Award – Laboratory Technologists & Technicians | Dr. Larissa Matukas |
| Psychiatry | |
| Award for Excellence in Postgraduate Medical Education | Dr. Karen Shin |
| Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Medical Education | Dr. Kien Dang |
| Award for Excellence in Continuing Medical Education | Dr. Wiplove Lamba |
| Aileen Meagher Resident Award for Best Grand Rounds Presentation | Dr. Tracy Alldred |
| Student Experience Committee | |
| 2019 Student Experience Award | Katie Gritton |
| FitzGerald Academy | |
| Clinical Skills Teacher Award | Dr. Dipen Thakrar Dr. Robert Sargeant Dr. Judith Peranson |
| Case-based Learning Teacher Award | Dr. Gabor Kandel |
| Clerkship Award | Dr. Marcus Burnstein |
| Resident/Fellow Teacher Award | Dr. Robert Vanner Dr. Jessica Timmings Dr. Jason Fishman Dr. Rebecca Cherniak |
| Master Teacher Award | Dr. Harold Spivak |
| Friends of the Academy | Dr. Michelle Dominey |
Health Disciplines Recognition Day at St. Michael’s – 2019
The 13th annual Health Disciplines recognition event was held on Friday, June 7, 2019 and a number of awards were handed out to recognize achievements in leadership, clinical excellence, education excellence and interprofessional collaboration among the 29 different health disciplines at St. Michael’s.
- Leadership Award: Punya Puri & Liza Luu, registered dietitians
- Clinical Excellence Award: Kerry Doherty, physiotherapist
- Education Excellence Award: Ayla Kirkham, speech-language pathologist
- Scholarship Award: Amanda Hignell, social worker
- Interprofessional Award: Simulation Program team
Academic Achievement Day at St. Joseph’s – 2019
Congratulations to our award winners! As a teaching Health Centre, education is at the heart of everything we do. On June 14, we celebrated and thanked our people at our annual Academic Achievement Day (AAD) event for the contributions you make in advancing our vision of being Canada’s best community teaching Health Centre. See our award winners here.
“Our teachers are some of the best and brightest minds, and they’re dedicated to developing the next generation of clinicians,” said Bev Bulmer, vice-president, Education at Unity Health. “Every educator helps us build a bridge to higher quality patient care and a better experience. Thank you so much for your passion for teaching and learning – it makes a difference to our community.”
- Interprofessional Teaching Award: Brendan Yeats
- Interprofessional Mentorship Award: Alex Costantini
- Excellence in Patient Education Award: Palliative Team on 6M
- Excellence in Clinical Teaching Award – Undergraduate: Dr. Brian Liu
- Excellence in Clinical Teaching Award – Medical Learner: Dr. Fouad Youssef
- Excellence in Clinical Teaching Award – Postgraduate: Dr. Kyle Wanzel
- Excellence in Medical Education Award – Large Program: Department of Emergency Medicine
- Excellence in Medical Education Award – Small Program: Division of Neurology
- Department of Medical Education and Scholarship Ambassador Award: Dr. Hanmu Yan
- Interprofessional Practice Department Ambassador Award: Eleni Geroulis
Innovation Awards at Providence – 2019
Providence Healthcare’s Innovation Awards recognize staff, physicians and volunteers that have worked to implement a new project or idea that has created measurable benefits for Providence. The winners were announced at the Innovation Awards ceremony on June 13. We also celebrated our staff and physicians who have dedicated themselves to professional development through continued education. They received financial grants that helped them cover the costs of courses, seminars and conferences.
Here were this year’s finalists:
Neuroeducation Labs to Facilitate Supportive Learning Experiences
Melissa Goddard, Jessica Casey, Julia Filinski
Hope Coaching: Empowering the Patient Experience of Stroke Rehab
Laura Derry, Magda Doran, Tracy Stober, Tracey Hamilton, Shawn Brady, Jennifer Joachimides
Valerie McWhinnie, Melissa Goddard
Prevention and Management of Pressure Injuries in the Houses of Providence
Susan Chandler, Asal Fouladgar, Shelley Allen, Caroline Filion, Rita Mah, Viani Tropiano
Aligning Our Stars in the Houses of Providence
Sharon Bissember, Selvaraj Dhanagopal, Maggie Duong, Caroline Filion, Shelley Allen, Nursing, Activation, Spiritual Care, and Physiotherapy
And our winners, by award category:
Originality: Tie – Neuroeducation Labs and Hope Coaching
Clarity: Hope Coaching
Supports Strat Plan: Hope Coaching
Evidence and Metrics: Hope Coaching
Sustainment: Tie – Hope Coaching and Pressure Injuries
People’s Choice Winner: Aligning Our Stars
Innovation Runner-up: Pressure Injuries
Innovation Award Winner: Hope Coaching
We also celebrated our staff and physicians who have dedicated themselves to professional development through continued education. Please help us congratulate this year’s recipients of our financial grants to help them cover the costs of courses, seminars and conferences.
Peer-nominated compassionate educators
To help us celebrate our inaugural Education Week, we invited all staff and physicians across Unity Health to recognize “educators” who demonstrated our value of Compassion in their roles. This educator could be a student, staff, physician, or patient/resident. The value of Compassion is defined as: “We enable health and healing by understanding each person’s needs by providing care with kindness and sensitivity.” Please help us congratulate the following nominees:
Providence Healthcare:
- Viani Tropiano, practice consultant, nursing
- Melissa Goddard, collaborative learning specialist
- Magda Doran, social worker
St. Joseph’s:
- ICU team
- Eleni Geroulis, advanced practical clinical educator
- Lucinda Ling, advanced practical clinical educator
- Maureen Savoie, advanced practical clinical educator
- Kimberly Peixoto, RN
- Susan Dubiel, team leader
- Olga Kurylo, RN
- Dr. Artin Termanian, physician
- Geeta Juta, advanced practical clinical educator
- Monica Figueiredo, advanced practical clinical educator
St. Michael’s:
- Katey Knott, interim director, Health Disciplines
- Dr. Jillian Baker, physician
- Dr. Natalie Wong, physician
- Dr. Aisha Lofters, physician
- Dr. Reena Pattani, physician
- Emily Kennedy, clinical nurse educator
- Michelle Williams, clinical nurse educator
- Nicole Kirwan, clinical leader manager