The Institute for Global Health at BC Children’s Hospital and the BC Women’s Hospital + Health Centre are thrilled to announce the 6th Annual Global Health Conference (GHC24).
GHC24 is an annual event bringing together a community of students, trainees, clinicians, researchers, and faculty from across health professions and disciplines to share knowledge.
This year’s topic is “Global Surgery: Addressing a Neglected Health Crisis”, co-chaired by the Dr. Faizal Haji (Department of Surgery) and Dr. Jan Christilaw (Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology).
The conference will host speakers from around the world, including keynote speaker Dr. Salome Maswime, Associate Professor & Head of Global Surgery at the University of Cape Town. Attendees will have the opportunity discuss the often-overlooked challenges in global surgical care, addressing issues from care inequalities to the impact of education and training on building surgical capacity, and exploring how these factors specifically affect the care of children and women worldwide.
When: Thursday, April 11, 2024 from 9 am–1:30 pm
Where: Hybrid event:
In-person at BC Children’s Hospital’s Chan Centre for Family Health Education
Join UBC’s Office of the Vice-President Research + Innovation on February 15 for a discussion of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, how to access and use them ethically, and understanding the risks they bring.
Dr. Jeff Clune (Canada CIFAR AI Chair and faculty member of the Vector Institute, senior research advisor at DeepMind and associate professor in Computer Science) will join Dr. Gail Murphy (Vice-President, Research & Innovation and professor in Computer Science) for a conversation on generative AI tools in research.
Date: Thursday, February 15, 2024 from 1:30–2:30 pm
Location: Online via Zoom
A recording will be made available following the event.
Do you have a creative idea to make your lab or research activity more sustainable?
The Green Labs Fund, part of UBC Sustainability’s Green Labs Program, promotes and supports sustainability in labs across our campuses.
Faculty, staff and students from UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan can apply for up to $4,000 to implement an innovative project. Submit your application by March 17, 2024.
Nominations are now open for the 2024 BC Rural Health Awards. Presented by the Rural Coordination Centre of BC (RCCbc), the awards celebrate and acknowledge the inspiring contributions of rural physicians, communities, and residents dedicated to enhancing the health of rural people and communities throughout BC.
Submit a nomination by February 7, 2024. Award recipients will be announced during the BC Rural Health Conference in May 2024.
Award categories
Rural BC Community Award: Honours a BC rural community for the work being done to support local rural healthcare service delivery.
Award of Excellence in Rural Medicine: Lifetime Achievement: Recognizes a BC rural physician for an extraordinary body of work and service provided over the span of a career.
New category — Resident Leadership Award: Highlights a resident who has demonstrated a sustained interest in rural and remote medicine in BC.
A message from Robert McMaster, Vice Dean, Research and Patricia Daly, Vice President, Public Health and Chief Medical Health Officer, Vancouver Coastal Health.
We are delighted to announce that Dr. Teresa Tsang has been appointed Associate Dean, Research, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI), UBC Faculty of Medicine and Executive Director, VCHRI effective to December 31, 2028.
Dr. Teresa Tsang is a professor and Associate Head, Research in the Department of Medicine. She is also Director of Echocardiography at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) and UBC Hospital, Director of the UBC Artificial Intelligence Echo Core Lab, as well as co-lead of the UBC Data Science and Health Research Cluster.
Dr. Tsang completed her cardiology fellowship from the University of Alberta with awards from the Medical Research Council of Canada and Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. She further pursued a clinical epidemiology fellowship program at the National Institutes of Health. Subsequently, Dr. Tsang completed a fellowship in advanced echocardiography at the Mayo Clinic, where she became a Mayo Foundation Scholar and was recruited to the Mayo Clinic as cardiologist and clinician-scientist, achieving the rank of Professor of Medicine in 2006.
As a clinician-scientist, Dr. Tsang’s research focuses on using large health datasets to advance patient care and strengthen health care delivery. Her work has focused on the prediction and prevention of adverse age-related cardiovascular events, including atrial fibrillation, heart failure, stroke and cognitive dysfunction. Dedicated to improving diagnosis and management of cardiovascular disease, her team has developed machine-learning models for echo imaging, enabling automated assessment of cardiac structure and function.
As a champion for health equity in cardiac imaging, Dr. Tsang is working on artificial intelligence solutions to bring cutting-edge imaging capabilities to remote and underserved areas. Her contributions to the field, particularly in atrial remodeling, cardiomyopathy, diastolic dysfunction and artificial intelligence in echo imaging were recognized with the 2023 Canadian Society of Echocardiography Achievement Award.
As Associate Dean, Research, VCHRI and Executive Director, VCHRI, Dr. Tsang will shape the health research strategy for the Institute, collaborating with the Vice Dean, Research, senior leadership at Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) and other health authority research institutes. She will play a pivotal role in integrating and coordinating health research across the Faculty, VCH, partner universities and health authorities. Dr. Tsang’s key priorities include nurturing talents, integrating research into clinical care, and fostering collaborative efforts to address shared challenges.
Dr. Tsang’s appointment follows the leadership of Dr. David Granville. We wish to recognize and thank Dr. Granville for his outstanding leadership and commitment to advancing research innovation and industry partnerships over the past three years. His instrumental role in developing the VCHRI five-year strategic plan has ensured the translational nature and excellence of our research.
Please join us in thanking Dr. David Granville for his continued contributions and welcoming Dr. Tsang to her new role.
Drs. Gillian Hanley (left) and Janice Kwon (right) are recipients of the 2021/2022 Precision Health Catalyst Grant award for their project entitled “Precision Health Care to Improve the Quality of Life and Long-term Health of People Entering Premature Surgical Menopause”.
“We aim to generate evidence…for example, an understanding of the complexity of prescribing appropriate Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), strategies and realistic expectations for patients and providers regarding the length of time and number of trials needed to find the appropriate HRT regimen.”
Can you tell us about the precision health research work in women’s health you’re collaborating on?
Among women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation, the lifetime risk of ovarian cancer is 35-36% and 13-23%, respectively, compared with a general population lifetime risk of 1.4%. There is no effective screening for ovarian cancer and therefore most women are diagnosed with advanced stage disease which is difficult to treat. Thus, primary prevention through risk-reducing bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (RRBSO, removal of both ovaries and fallopian tubes) is offered and it reduces the risk of BRCA mutation-associated ovarian or fallopian tube cancers by 80% and all-cause mortality by 70%. However, RRBSO is offered between the age of 35 and 40 for women with BRCA1 mutations and between 40 and 45 years for those with a BRCA2 mutation, because ovarian cancer tends to occur at an earlier age in these women (40’s and 50’s respectively for BRCA1 and BRCA2). This is well before the average age of onset of natural menopause of 51 years. Thus, women with a BRCA mutation, or women who are otherwise at high risk for ovarian cancer, are destined to enter premature surgical menopause if they have this life-saving prevention strategy.
Premature surgical menopause negatively impacts quality of life in the short term, particularly through vasomotor symptoms, sleep disturbance and reduced sexual functioning. However, it also increases risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), osteoporosis and bone fractures in the long-term. Evidence suggests that use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can mitigate some of the harmful effects of surgical menopause, and when the HRT regimen is ideal for the patient, it provides significant short-term benefits for quality of life.
Our previous research has examined uptake of HRT in young women across BC who undergo premature surgical menopause. We reported: 1) low rates of initiating use of HRT following premature surgical menopause (~60%); and, 2) low rates of sustained use of HRT (only 19% used HRT for more than 5 years). The newly launched Gynecologic Cancer Survivorship Clinic at Vancouver Coastal Health was designed to serve the BRCA1 and BRCA2 population through ongoing care, support, and HRT management of young women after premature surgical menopause. These patients all receive personalized guidance on use of HRT that is tailored to their age, symptoms, and personal medical history.
Ultimately, we aim to generate evidence from this clinic that can be more broadly useful around uptake and HRT management in other patient populations. For example, an understanding of the complexity of prescribing appropriate HRT, strategies and realistic expectations for patients and providers regarding the length of time and number of trials needed to find the appropriate HRT regimen. We hope these data can go a long way to improving long-term health in many patient populations who enter premature surgical menopause.
What results have you seen so far?
We have seen evidence that finding the appropriate HRT regimen can be very challenging and can involve up to six different changes to medication and dosages. It is rarely a one-size fits all approach, but with persistence and the willingness to adjust, patients can get considerable relief from their menopausal symptoms, and can regain quality of life that they thought they would never again have. We are eager to expand these learnings beyond this clinic, so that many patients in premature surgical menopause can benefit.
From your perspective, what do you think is exciting about the future direction of precision health?
Precision health is absolutely the way forward in gynecologic cancer, and many other areas of medicine. This clinic provides precision health to a group of patients who have surgical prevention for ovarian cancer because of a genetic mutation that dramatically increases their cancer risk. The fact that we can identify their increased risk, intervene to reduce their all-cause mortality risk by 70%, and then follow them to provide the specific care that they need to maintain their health, live as high quality a life as possible, and reduce their future risk for adverse health outcomes related to premature surgical menopause, is an example of a precision medicine success story. These patients are getting exactly what they need to stay cancer-free and healthy through the appropriate use of hormone replacement. Our work aims to learn from this clinic, and then to extend it beyond those who would qualify to be seen at this clinic, as there are many people who could benefit from precision medicine with hormone replacement. There is so much work being done in this area, and we hope to see a future where hormone therapy is used in a way that extends the health and wellbeing of everyone who needs it.
About Dr. Gillian Hanley
Dr. Gillian Hanley is an Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of British Columbia. She is a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Population-Based Gynecologic and Perinatal Outcomes. Her research combines her interest in women’s health with her training in economics, health services research and epidemiology to answer questions related to gynecologic cancer, primarily ovarian cancer prevention and survivorship.
About Dr. Janice Kwon
Dr. Janice Kwon is a Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UBC. Her expertise is in hereditary cancer syndromes and conducting cost-effectiveness analyses of testing criteria and risk-reducing interventions. She currently holds a Health Professional Investigator Award from Michael Smith Health Research BC.
Join UBC Connects at Robson Square for “Imagining Multisensory Art: Learning from Objects; Literacy and Inclusion” on Saturday, January 27.
Developed by Vancouver Art Gallery in partnership with a researchers, artists, thought leaders, and activists, including the Faculty of Medicine’s Dr. Ruanne Lai and Dr. Laura Yvonne Bulk, this event will address how collaboration between institutions of learning and art can advance accessibility.
The event is intentionally designed to create a space for tactile and non-visual participation with care, enjoyment and respect.
