By Melanie Jollymore
Any time his stage-four COPD flares up, Sheldon Williams can end up spending several breathless hours in the emergency room, waiting to be assessed and given the medication he needs to clear the obstructive secretions from his compromised lungs.
By Melanie Jollymore
What do a family doctor, a hospital-based pharmacist, a handful of Dalhousie health researchers, and a Nova Scotian who has experience with opioids for chronic pain, have in common?
BRIC NS was proud to host the recipients of the 2019 Student Research Award at a reception on September 17th.
BRIC NS 2019 Student Research Award Winners (L-R): Julia Rodgers, Alicia Grant-Singh, Brittany Barber, Nicole MacKenzie (Not pictured: Leah Carrier)
In collaboration with our Patient Engagement Working Group, BRIC NS has developed a Quick Guide for people who are interested in getting involved in research. This is the first of a series that will eventually make up four booklets.
Information we include has been adapted,with permissions, from others who have created similar type booklets such as INVOLVE in the United Kingdom. Support and advice for changes to reflect our Canadian environment were provided by patient partners who worked with us to ensure we cover the kinds of information people need when first becoming engaged in research.
You can download the Quick Guide here and find it under the Resources section of our website.
Congratulations to Juanna Ricketts, member of the BRIC NS Advisory Council and Patient Partner for receiving the Canada 150 Medal from the Senate of Canada for her volunteer work with the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Halifax-Dartmouth. The award was given out on June 12 at the CMHA Annual Meeting.
Congratulations to Ryley Urban, currently pursuing her Master’s in Industrial Engineering at Dalhousie University! Ryley is the winner of the third annual BRIC NS Student Poster Award for her poster “Panel reallocation model for providers in Rural Nova Scotia.” The prize is presented at Primary Health Care Research Day.
Eighteen posters were up for consideration, presented by undergraduate, Master’s and PhD students, representing three universities. Thank you to all of our applicants and judges.
BRIC NS is pleased to offer an award for best student poster given at Primary Health Care Research Day. To be eligible, the abstract must be accepted by the Primary Health Care Research Day Program Committee. Applicants must be currently enrolled in a degree program at a Nova Scotia university or community college. Applicants must be first author on posters and must present their own work and not that of an advisor. Reviewers assess the overall quality of the poster’s content and the presenter’s ability to successfully and succinctly present the subject matter.
BRIC NS Science Lead, Dr. Fred Burge, was interviewed by the Chronicle Herald in advance of Primary Health Care Research Day.
“How do we take emerging evidence and move it into clinical care or into policy and practice design?” said Dr. Fred Burge, the director of the primary care research unit at Dalhousie University.
Read the full story here.
Congratulations to BRIC NS member Mike Reid, who has been accepted into the TUTOR-PHC program, a one-year certificate program in primary health care research skills and interdisciplinary theory and processes. BRIC NS provides financial support to one graduate student member for participation in the program. You can read about his research below:
“There is a growing body of research in Nova Scotia highlighting high levels of community variation in health outcomes like unplanned repeat hospitalizations and long lengths of stay across the province. This research has also shown that this variation persists despite adjustment for a wide variety of factors (age, sex, disease, multimorbidity, etc.). These findings have led us to believe that there must be something about how the formal and informal support systems in specific communities interact with each other that is having a profound effect on the health outcomes of Nova Scotians. We refer to these interactions as “community systems of health”. My master’s work, along with a number of other studies have given us a good idea of where these variations in community systems of health are occurring. Through the TUTOR-PHC program as well as my doctoral work I will explore the question of how and why Nova Scotia’s community systems of health are resulting in different health outcomes across the province.”
Applications for the 2019 BRIC NS Student Research Award are closed.
In partnership with the Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation, the BRIC NS Student Research Award is offered as a supplementary award to the Scotia Scholars Award. A minimum of two awards of $1500 will be given to Master’s/PhD students working on a research project in primary and integrated health care.
We are delighted to announce that Dr. Gillian Bartlett will be the new Primary and Integrated Health Care Innovations Network Coordinating Office Executive Director. The Network Coordinating Office supports BRIC NS and the other PIHCI Networks at a pan-Canadian level. Dr. Bartlett is a full professor at McGill University in Montreal as well as the Research and Graduate Programs Director and the Associate Chair in the Department of Family Medicine. Dr. Bartlett specializes in primary care research and knowledge translation. She will start March 1, 2019.
Biography
Dr. Gillian Bartlett is a tenured Professor as well as the Research and Graduate Programs Director and the Associate Chair in the Department of Family Medicine at McGill University. She received her PhD in epidemiology from McGill in 2001 and her MSc in 1996. In 2014, she was awarded the Carrie M. Derick Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and Supervision for McGill University and the Faculty of Medicine Honour List for Educational Excellence. Dr. Bartlett specializes in primary care research and knowledge translation. Her current concentration is on knowledge translation and stakeholder engagement around health care utilization and outcomes for vulnerable populations; implementation of precision medicine using patient-oriented strategies; and the use of education innovations to advance the discipline of family medicine and primary care.
BRIC NS 