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“Baby by Stealth” covers only one side of complex argument
In her front-page National Post article, “Baby by Stealth”, journalist Kathyrn Blaze Carlson, suggests that a Canadian statute is causing Canadians to break the law. Quoting some professionals whose income is derived at least in part from assisted human reproduction, Carlson writes that the Assisted Human Reproduction Act is “forcing a slew of prospective parents underground”.
The article suggests that Parliament is wrong to treat people who just want to be a mom or a dad like criminals. But the one-sided argument hardly helps advance debate on this complex issue.
Regulating human reproduction in Canada has not been easy, especially for politicians who face re–election by citizens who can disagree fundamentally on reproductive matters.
Not surprisingly, every Canadian effort at regulation has been controversial. The Ontario Law Reform Commission bravely tackled the matter in 1982. But that all-male body recommended that “surrogacy” deals be enforced, even by taking a breast-feeding infant from its mother.
Canadian women reacted by lobbying for the federal Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. It reported in 1993, after spending $28 million hearing from individuals and groups throughout the country and commissioning volumes of original academic research.
Despite the cost and the effort, it would be eleven years before Canada’s Parliament enacted the Assisted Human Reproduction Act.
And then in June 2008, the Quebec Court of Appeal decided that Parliament acted unconstitutionally regarding many statutory provisions because they concerned health – a matter within provincial jurisdiction. The Federal Government appealed to the Supreme Court, whose decision we await.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government has, since January 2009, had a duty to review the existing statute. It is unclear whether Prime Minister Harper’s government has even commenced the statutorily-required task.
This history can perhaps unite all Canadians in agreement on two points: it is difficult to pass legislation in a federation about matters as sensitive as whether people can buy semen, ova and embryos; and some Canadians are bound to feel badly treated by everyone’s best efforts to regulate assisted human reproduction.
So maybe we should not ask, “How can we make everyone happy?” but rather, “Whom should we worry about the most?” Parliament admirably answered this question in 2004 when it recognized and declared that, “the health and well-being of children born through the application of assisted human reproductive technologies must be given priority in all decisions respecting their use”.
So what are the health and well-being interests of the children? Some reproductive technology providers say, “The children should be grateful to be alive.” In other words, they believe that the children’s interests are in being born and the consequences of the methods are irrelevant.
But many disagree. Some people conceived by third party gametes say that not knowing half of their identity creates a significant loss. Many claim that not only must they grieve this loss; they must defend the legitimacy of their grief – a double blow.
Some donor-conceived people compare themselves to adoptees whose loss is recognized. Adoptees are encouraged to seek their birth parents and are aided by government registries in their search. By contrast, parents who use third party gametes need not tell children the truth about their conceptions. Nor is anyone who knows the identity of the genetic parent required to disclose this fact to the child, even when the child becomes an adult.
Whilst the donor-conceived and adoptees arguably suffer similar losses in being separated from their genetic parents, adoptees can find resolution of the loss in the knowledge that the decision to surrender them for adoption was arrived at with great emotional difficulty, as a last resort. The donor-conceived, however, can find it much harder to find resolution of this deliberate separation of genetic and social parenting.
The donor-conceived can believe that their genetic parents were only interested in money, and gave no real thought to the children they were helping to create. They can be devastated by the full import of what their genetic parents did – that their parents were motivated by the money. A condition of the sale can be the promise of anonymity, but the donor-conceived can be severely affected by their inability to meet their genetic parents or even know their names.
Curiously, the National Post article seems to lament, “We see donors who originally thought they didn’t want to be very involved, but who then want increased involvement after the child is born.” How is parental involvement with his or her child a bad thing, even if it is inconvenient for the rearing parents? Children are usually glad to know and to develop a relationship with their genetic parents.
Parliament’s decision to ban the sale of semen, ova and embryos is bound not to make everyone happy. But insofar as it attempted to protect human reproduction from becoming a commercial enterprise, its motivation is honourable.
In the reproductive technology business, some people claim that adults have a right to have a child no matter what the cost. Parliament and Canadian legislatures have a moral duty to investigate the costs to prospective children and to take steps to reduce them.
When regulating assisted human reproduction, the health and well-being of children and prospective children must be given priority, even if commercial or other adult interests might incidentally be thwarted.
Dr. Juliet Guichon is Senior Associate in the Office of Medical Bioethics and a faculty member of the Department of Community Health Sciences in the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine.
The coming cancer crunch
By Dr. Peter Craighead
For The Calgary Herald — March 18, 2010
Publicly funded health care is only sustainable by focusing on and providing what is needed by its constituents.
During the boom years, many Albertans and their health-care leaders assumed we could ask for whatever we wanted. The truth is that Alberta’s health-care system now is forced to balance the needs of our public against the wants of its health-care leaders, whether this is in the provision of surgical services for joint replacement, caring for stroke patients or funding expensive cancer treatment.
The Rolling Stones aptly describe this in their song: “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime you just might find, you get what you need.” The recent flurry of discussions around a new cancer centre in Calgary forces us to ask whether this is a need or a want.
Almost one in two Albertans will develop cancer in their lifetime, and one in four will die from this disease. Another way of looking at this is to realize that there were 14,500 new cancer cases diagnosed in 2009, and there are an estimated 80,000 people living with cancer in our province. About 85 per cent of these cancer patients will be seen and treated at cancer centres around the province. The Tom Baker Cancer Centre in Calgary is one of two major centres in the province, currently sees 150,000 patient visits annually and is the major referral centre for cancer care in southern Alberta.
So what is it that Albertans need when it comes to cancer care, and how has the system responded to this? Albertans with cancer need to receive state-of-the-art treatments in a timely, respectful manner; they should have access to care as close to home as possible; and they should not suffer pain or emotional distress. We also believe that Albertans should have access to prevention strategies that reduce the incidence of cancer and screening that finds the disease at an early, curable stage.
Until the second half of the last decade, Alberta’s health system responded well to these needs. For example, by the early 2000s the province had built up a network of facilities across the province, was highly responsive to cancer drug treatment requests and supported the purchase of expensive radiotherapy equipment in Edmonton and Calgary. Alberta was considered one of the best places to receive cancer treatment, and the place to work if you were a cancer specialist. This was evidenced by the successful recruitment of medical specialists, researchers, nurses and other professionals.
The rapid growth of Alberta’s population, continued increase in cancer numbers, success in recruitment and the change in our health system have all contributed to a growing capacity problem for us. Facilities in Edmonton and Calgary have outstripped their space, leading to a significant impact on patient experience. Cancer care has worked with the province to identify solutions, including the distribution of radiotherapy to smaller cities, plans to expand buildings in Edmonton and Calgary, and using leased space to tide us over for the medium term. We are also improving efficiencies within our centres to increase patient throughput.
The TBCC responded by moving some functions off site, because there was no available expansion space at Foothills Hospital. Since 2003, we have completed two phases of renovations in leased space at the Holy Cross Hospital, and the space we are currently renovating will allow us to expand treatment facilities at the Tom Baker site, so we can sustain our comprehensive service to cancer patients for southern Alberta for at least another three years. A few years ago, we also relocated many of the day procedures that we previously performed within the TBCC to the Foothills, but it is apparent that the rest of the system has minimal capacity to accommodate any further growth. Finally, we are in discussion with South Health Campus planners to see whether that space will provide us options for dealing with our space crunch in the medium term.
How have these decisions affected patient experience in Calgary? As I write this, patients experience serious overcrowding in our facilities, are made to travel between sites for various parts of their clinical care and some of them have excessive wait times to get in to see oncologists.
Fortunately, the wait times for treatment other than surgery continue to fall within our guidelines of two weeks for chemotherapy and eight weeks for radiotherapy. But the fragmentation of services into two sites means patients cannot take advantage of all services at one time. A further complication of providing clinical services across the city is that our clinical staff becomes less efficient by having to include transit times into their day. Simply put, distributing the services of one cancer centre within a city provides a suboptimal patient experience compared with full-service cancer centres.
Predictions tell us that by 2013, when the breathing room provided by Holy Cross will have been exhausted, we can expect to be seeing six to eight per cent more new cases, and to be treating 10 per cent more patients. Although the opening of Lethbridge radiotherapy facilities will help us deal especially with radiotherapy referrals, and the increase in throughput initiatives will gain some efficiencies in chemotherapy treatments, it is predicted that we will be facing severe shortages in Calgary by 2013. Given the budgetary pressures facing Alberta Health Services, it will take significant focus on our part to see a co-ordinated strategy for cancer in the next 12 months. The short-and medium-term solutions we have employed have allowed us to provide excellent care, albeit of a somewhat fragmented nature.
AHS has made efforts to respond to cancer patients’ needs in the short term, but we now must challenge ourselves to move away from a “building the new system” mode into focusing on how to address the longer-term needs of patients, including the particular needs of cancer patients in Calgary.
As a medical leader within AHS Cancer Care, I am ready to support any planning process that ensures that future patients in Calgary are provided a superior experience, and that we are able to address their need to receive timely, quality care.
Peter Craighead, MD FRCPC, is senior radiation oncologist and director of the Tom Baker Cancer Centre.
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/coming+cancer+crunch/2695990/story.html#ixzz0iXuD3sPl
Fatal Lobby
Re: “Ottawa ‘has gone too far’ on flavoured smokes ban,” Feb. 20.
I was dismayed to read about the federal government being pressured to rescind the ban on flavoured tobacco by congressmen from Indiana, Kentucky and Virginia. Tobacco is the leading preventable cause of heart disease, stroke, emphysema and cancer, the four leading causes of death in Canada and the U.S. I am a specialist in lung diseases and see the devastating effects of the tobacco epidemic daily.
Most people think tobacco-related diseases are primarily diseases of the elderly, but young people are also affected. One of my saddest memories was my last visit to a 38-year-old patient dying from lung cancer who was reading a pamphlet titled, How To Tell Your Young Children That You Are Dying. She had started smoking in junior high with friends and was unable to quit. Flavoured tobacco, not just the candy-flavoured types, but those blended to reduce the harshness of some tobaccos only have one purpose — to hook young people.
Once people are hooked, they will smoke anything to get their nicotine fix. These politicians are beholden to the tobacco industry and its lobby and don’t focus enough on the devastating effect tobacco has on Canadians and their families. Nor do they care about its huge costs to our healthcare system.
Non-smokers are also hurt by tobacco’s health consequences. A doctor’s office or a hospital bed used by a smoker only delays access to, and increases wait times for, non-smokers when they need health care.
Stephen Field, MD, Calgary Stephen Field is a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Calgary medical school
Two UCalgary clinician scientists named Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 2008
By Andrea Di Ubaldo
Dr. Fiona Costello: photo provided
As Albert Einstein once said, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”
Indeed, Dr. Fiona Costello and Dr. Andrew Demchuk seem to have found their perfect balance by constantly moving. Both were recently named to the Caldwell Partners International’s Top 40 Under 40 list.
The award is given to individuals who have shown vision and leadership; innovation and achievement; impact; community involvement and contribution; and growth / development strategy. Out of approximately 1200 nominees, Costello and Demchuk are two out of six physician scientists awarded this honour as chosen by an independent advisory board.
Balancing, more like juggling
Dr. Andrew Demchuk: photo provided
For Demchuk, co-leader of the Attacking Stroke program at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute in the Faculty of Medicine, it’s all about the ‘Big 5’: education; administration; research; clinical care; and family. Not necessarily in that order.
“I try to do all things because I like all five,” Demchuk says. “I have a great wife who manages most of the day-to-day raising of our two boys; I’m a quality time kind of guy, so I get to do the fun stuff with the boys at night and on weekends.”
Demchuk is the director of the Calgary Stroke Program, chair of Pillar 2 (Acute Care and Emergency Services) of the Alberta Provincial Stroke Strategy, past-chair of the Board of Directors of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Alberta, NWT and Nunavut, and an associate professor with the Departments of Clinical Neurosciences and the Department of Radiology at UCalgary.
In addition to his teaching and clinical practice, Demchuk is also a world-renowned researcher whose primary research interests lie in the area of cerebral vascular imaging and its application in developing new treatments for those who have suffered from stroke. .
He admits to verging on workaholic status, as a director, teacher, researcher, physician, husband and father.
Kids keep things in perspective
“I have four kids aged eight, five, three and six-months. It’s often a gong show,” Costello laughs. “I’m married to a great guy, who has a very demanding career. It’s tough to balance, but we work well together.”
Costello is a clinician scientist and co-director of the NeuroProtection and Repair Evaluation Unit (NPREU) with the Arresting Multiple Sclerosis (MS) program at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute at the Faculty of Medicine and an associate professor in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences. Her research and clinical expertise are in the areas of neuro-ophthalmology and multiple sclerosis. Together with her collaborators, she has been awarded $2.5 million research grant funding to implement a novel experimental model of MS she has developed in ongoing studies.
“I use the visual system as a means of finding new ways to look at old problems.
The eye can give us many insights into mechanisms of brain injury, and help us better understand diseases like multiple sclerosis,” she says.
“It’s a great honour because this award isn’t restricted to the medical community,” 39-year-old Costello says. “Everyone goes in on an even playing field, all experts in their respective areas.”
Demchuk, also 39, believes it’s an honour for both him and his team. “It’s a bit of validation for all of the hours and days of work we put in. My CV would be miniscule without a team.”
Costello says her kids have made her a better physician and person and much better at time management. “My kids have forced me to be more focused and less self – indulgent with my time.”
“And kids don’t care what awards you’ve won,” she adds.
About the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary
UCalgary’s Faculty of Medicine is a national leader in health research with an international reputation for excellence and innovation in health care research, education and delivery. We train the next generation of health practitioners and move new treatments and diagnostic techniques from the laboratory bench to the hospital bedside, improving patient care. For more information visit http://medicine.ucalgary.ca. or follow us on twitter.com @UofCMedicine.
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Doctor Shortage Symposium: Controversially educational
By Andrea Di Ubaldo
Pick a hot topic, add some industry professionals, invite everyone you can think of. What do you get? A Medical Student Health Policy Symposium that is both educational and, as the organizers hope, a little bit controversial.
2nd Annual Medical Student Health Policy Symposium: Event poster
The symposium will be on May 7, 2009 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. in the Faculty of Medicine’s Libin Lecture Theatre at the Health Sciences Centre.
Alaina Aguanno, a third-year medical student, and Kevin Wasko, a first-year medical student at the University of Calgary, are co-organizers of this year’s symposium which will discuss Canada’s doctor shortage. The two also sit on the students’ council as Vice-Presidents of External Affairs for their respective classes.
“We hope that this symposium answers a few questions but stirs up many more,” Aguanno says. “The issues we are discussing are complex – contributing factors and management strategies will only scratch the surface of the potential for the topics surrounding this issue.”
“We hope attendees will gain a better understanding of the physician shortage in Canada and what is being done to address the issue,” Wasko adds.
The annual symposium was created last year by Aguanno, who holds a masters of science in the areas of health policy and health economics and wanted to share her passion for these topics.
“I created the symposium because I felt that health-care professionals, and especially medical students like me, could benefit from a greater understanding of the social, political and economic context of the system in which we work,” Aguanno says.
Only in its second year, the event will feature many high-profile speakers, including the Hon. Ronald Liepert, Minister of Health and Wellness along with the presidents of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) and the Alberta Medical Association (AMA), Drs. Robert Ouellet and Noel Grisdale, and professors from UCalgary and the University of British Columbia.
“We invited the people who we thought were best-suited to answer our questions and they said yes!” Aguanno says excitedly. “Our speakers have been very enthusiastic about this event, both last year and again this year; we are fortunate to have such dedicated teachers and leaders.”
Last year’s symposium examined public, private and mixed models of health care financing and featured Dr. Brian Day, CMA president, and Dr. Darryl LaBuick, AMA president, along with Dr. Tom Noseworthy, professor and head of the Department of Community Health Sciences and director of the Centre for Health and Policy Studies at UCalgary.
“We’re really excited about this year’s event. With the enthusiastic support we received last year, the first symposium was at maximum capacity,” Aguanno smiles.
Learn more about the 2nd Annual Medical Students Health Policy Symposium.
About the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary
UCalgary’s Faculty of Medicine is a national leader in health research with an international reputation for excellence and innovation in health care research, education and delivery. We train the next generation of health practitioners and move new treatments and diagnostic techniques from the laboratory bench to the hospital bedside, improving patient care. For more information visit http://medicine.ucalgary.ca. or follow us on twitter.com @UofCMedicine.
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Faculty of Medicine professor awarded national research chair
Dr. Lynn McIntyre (front row, third from left) with five other researchers awarded chair in New Perspectives in Gender, Sex and Health from CIHR.
A UCalgary Faculty of Medicine professor and researcher–whose passion for eradicating global food insecurity has taken her as far away as Bangladesh to study the issue–has been awarded a research chair in New Perspectives in Gender, Sex and Health by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
As part of research chair program created by the CIHR’s Institute of Gender Health (IGH), Dr. Lynn McIntyre, professor, Department of Community Health Sciences, was awarded the chair along with five other leading health researchers from across Canada.
“The chairs are producing cutting-edge research with enormous potential to improve the health of Canadians, such as Dr. McIntyre’s research on hunger and food insecurity domestically and internationally,” says Dr. Joy Johnson, Scientific Director of the Institute of Gender and Health. “Her work focuses on women and children, the most frequent victims of food insecurity both in Canada and in other countries.”
McIntyre’s work–which is in line with the first Development Millennium Goal of halving world hunger by 2015–took her to Bangladesh where she studied hunger amongst both urban and rural populations.
During the in-depth study, McIntyre spoke to groups of highly vulnerable woman, living on less than one dollar a day and responsible for providing for their families. The intense field work included door-to-door recruitment and speaking to these women about food insecurity and hunger in various remote locations and in the slums of Dhaka.
In Bangladesh to present findings
Her principal finding was a need for a whole person development approach–a readjustment of available health care services to ensure they meet the needs of these women and others like them. McIntyre is currently in Bangladesh sharing her findings with government officials and non-profit agencies.
“The women have told me, ‘We knew when we met you that you were going to do something for us,’ and I am doing my best to bring improved understanding to those who really can do something for millions of women like them,” says McIntyre.
Closer to home, McIntyre is part of a study looking at social policies in Canada created between 1996 and 2006, focusing on their impact on national food insecurity. She’s also working with Alberta Health Services as they begin investigating the impacts of food insecurity on their patient population, the first clinical site in Canada to do this.
The IGH created the research chair program to expand and strengthen research capacity relevant to gender (socio-cultural experiences), sex (biological factors) and health in Canada. It is intended for health researchers who have developed a reputation for excellence in research, and to support outstanding research programs that enhance the health of Canadians.
MacQueen appointed Head, Department of Psychiatry
Dr. Glenda MacQueen
I am pleased to announce that Glenda MacQueen, MD, FRCPC, PhD has been appointed to the position of Head of the Department of Psychiatry for the Faculty of Medicine and Regional Clinical Department Head, Psychiatry for the Calgary Health Region, as of September 1, 2008.
Dr. MacQueen joins us from McMaster University where she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences and the Academic Director of the Mood Disorders Program at St. Joseph’s Health Care Centre in Hamilton, Ontario. She is a founding member of the Brain Body Institute and an associate member of the Intestinal Diseases Research Program.
Dr. MacQueen is the Coordinator for Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences Clinical Investigator’s Program for the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University. She is very involved in graduate and postgraduate training programs and she recently received the 2008 award for Excellence in Research Mentoring from the Dept of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at McMaster.
Dr. MacQueen’s research interests are on structural and functional brain changes associated with mood disorders and the factors that predict outcome in mood disorders. Her work has been funded by national and international funding agencies including the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the Canadian Psychiatric Research Foundation, the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders, the Stanley Medical Research Foundation, the Ontario Mental Health Foundation, the Scottish Rite Foundation and the National Centre of Excellence AllerGen Inc. Dr MacQueen received the Innovations in Neuropsychopharmacology Research Award for 2008 from the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology.
She is currently serving as the Scientific Officer for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Behavioral Sciences B committee. She is also a member of the Canada Research Chairs College of Reviewers and sits on the Editorial Board of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry and the Chronicles of Neurology and Psychiatry. She is a clinical editor of the Current Medical Literature Psychiatry series.
Glenda MacQueen is an outstanding addition to our Faculty and will take the lead in positioning UCalgary’s Faculty of Medicine as a leader in mental health education, management and research. Please join me in welcoming her to Calgary and to her new role.
Tom Feasby, MD
Dean, Faculty of Medicine
2008 University of Calgary – Faculty of Medicine. All rights reserved.
Kellner appointed Head, Department of Paediatrics
Dr. Jim Kellner
I am pleased to announce that James Kellner, MD, M.Sc, FRCPC has been appointed to the position of Head of the Department of Paediatrics for the Faculty of Medicine and Regional Clinical Department Head, Pediatrics, Calgary Health Region, as of October 1, 2008.
Dr. Kellner is currently Head, Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Deputy Head (Research and Administration), Department of Paediatrics and Associate Director of the Institute of Maternal and Child Health. He is a professor in the departments of Paediatrics; Microbiology and Infectious Diseases; and Community Health Sciences.
He received his MD degree from the University of Calgary (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) and his M.Sc (Clinical Epidemiology) from the University of Toronto (Toronto, Ontario, Canada). He trained in pediatrics in Calgary and Toronto, where he was Chief Resident at the Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto, Ontario, Canada). After a fellowship and practice in Emergency Pediatrics for five years, he received training in Infectious Diseases in Toronto.
Dr. Kellner’s main research interest is in the the epidemiology and prevention of Streptococcus pneumoniae infections. He has authored close to 60 peer-reviewed papers in and his research has been funded by the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, the Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation and the Canadian Infectious Diseases Society.
“I am very honoured and excited to be given the opportunity to lead the Department of Pediatrics. The Department has grown tremendously over the last several years to provide increased specialty and sub-specialized clinical services to children and families throughout Calgary and southern Alberta,” says Dr. Kellner.
“In addition, we are training more undergraduate and postgraduate health care workers and researchers, and our researchers are tackling an increasing array of health issues to increase knowledge and develop solutions that will promote, restore and retain the health of children.”
“I look forward to working with colleagues and staff in the Department and with our partners to meet this challenge!”
Please join me in welcoming Dr. Kellner to his new leadership role.
Tom Feasby, MD
Dean, Faculty of Medicine
Faculty of Medicine celebrates excellence
By Laurie Wang
Posted February 5, 2009
Recognition, excitement and pride. These are some of the things more than 300 people felt at the inaugural Celebration of Excellence on Wednesday.
Faculty, staff and students gathered in the Health Research Innovation Centre (HRIC) atrium at noon to celebrate the 23 faculty who won prestigious external prizes and awards in 2008—from the Gairdner International Award, to the Globe and Mail’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women, the Family Physician of the Year award and more.
“We have more people here than we expected,” says Wee Yong, PhD, with a grin. “It is great to see so many people here celebrating the success of our faculty.” Yong was the emcee for the event. He is chair of the Awards and Recognition Committee, whose function is to facilitate the process in which appropriate nominees are put forth for various awards.
The committee was created by Dr. Tom Feasby, dean, Faculty of Medicine. “I knew that leading universities take a systematic approach to nominating their faculty members for awards and I knew we were missing opportunities. So, I approached Wee with the idea of forming a committee and asked him—the most ‘can-do’ person I know—to lead it,” says Feasby. Yong was also a winner in 2008, named one of the 20 Compelling Calgarians by the Calgary Herald.
Dr. Rosie Goldstein, Vice President, Research, UCalgary, was also in attendance. “Today we recognize your innovations and drive for scientific achievement, your mentoring, dedication and talent in education, educating the next generation of health care providers and researchers, and your service to community.”
She couldn’t help but mention 2008 Gairdner Laureate Samuel Weiss, PhD, in her speech, poking a bit of fun at him. “Over the past year, many people have mentioned to Sam Weiss that roughly a quarter of Gairdner award recipients also go on to receive a Nobel Prize, but I won’t mention it. I won’t add to the pressure,” Goldstein smiles.
Besides a faculty member winning a Gairdner in 2008, the Faculty of Medicine boasts a member who had an award named after him: Dr. John D. Reynolds. Reynolds received the first John D. Reynolds Award from the Canadian Society for Immunology.
“It’s very rare for an award to be named after a living individual. Congratulations John!” says Yong as the crowd chuckles.
The Celebration of Excellence will be an annual event at the Faculty of Medicine, and each year, the Faculty hopes to add even more people to the list of individuals to celebrate.
“Our members are some of the best and brightest in their fields. I look forward to celebrating even more successes with everyone next year,” says Feasby.
2008 Faculty of Medicine external award recipients
Dr. Jenn Brenner
One of the Top 5 Canadians to Watch by World Vision
Dr. Norm Campbell
Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada’s Leadership Award in Heart Healthy Policy
Dr. Linda Carlson
William E. Rawls Prize in Oncology
Dr. Rod Crutcher
Award for Improvement of Social Infrastructure/Condition (for the Sudanese Physician Reintegration Program) by the Canadian International Development Agency
Dr. Tyrone Donnon
Certificate of Merit Award from the Canadian Association for Medical Education
Dr. Kathryn J. Hannah
Canadian Nurses’ Association Centennial Award
Dr. David Hart
Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences
Dr. Jennifer Hatfield
One of the Globe and Mail’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women
Dr. Robert Herman
2008 Osler Award from the Canadian Society of Internal Medicine
Dr. Deirdre Jenkins
Certificate of Merit Award from the Canadian Association for Medical Education
Dr. Renee Martin
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
Dr. John Parboosingh
Duncan Graham Award from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons
Dr. Man-Chiu Poon
World Federation of Hemophilia 2008 International Healthcare Volunteer Award
Dr. John Reynolds
John D. Reynolds Award created in his name by the Canadian Society for Immunology
Dr. Robert Sheldon
Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences
Dr. Mark Sosnowski
Family Physician of the Year by the College of Family Physicians of Canada
Dr. Garnette Sutherland
Calgary Awards Signature Award
Dr. Roger Thompson
Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada’s Henry J.M. Barnett Scholarship
Dr. John Wallace
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada &
BioAlberta’s Award in Scientific Achievement and Innovation
Dr. Sam Weiss
2008 Gairdner International Award
Dr. George Wyse
Canadian Cardiovascular Congress Annual Achievement Award
Dr. Voon Wee Yong
20 Compelling Calgarians Award from the Calgary Herald
Dr. Gerald Zamponi
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada/
About the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary
UCalgary’s Faculty of Medicine is a national leader in health research with an international reputation for excellence and innovation in health care research, education and delivery. We train the next generation of health practitioners and move new treatments and diagnostic techniques from the laboratory bench to the hospital bedside, improving patient care.
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2008 University of Calgary – Faculty of Medicine. All rights reserved.
UCalgary Medicine 