Frontiers of Care takes you inside real medical stories at Sinai Health. Host Garvia Bailey talks to patients, doctors and nurses about the amazing medical advances happening every day at one of Canada's top hospital systems.
Sabrina Hawkes had a gut feeling that something was wrong with her pregnancy. Her first child had been big. This one was small and growing slowly. At a routine appointment only 27 weeks into her pregnancy, she learned any hope of survival for her baby meant he needed to be born that day at Mount Sinai Hospital. Sinai Health’s NICU became their second home.
Guests:
Sabrina Hawkes lives with her husband and two boys in Angus, Ontario. Her youngest, Tristan, was born at just 27 weeks one day gestation at Mount Sinai Hospital in October of 2019.
Dr. Jennifer Young is a neonatologist at Mount Sinai Hospital and an assistant professor in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto. She currently chairs the Life With A Preterm Baby organization which focuses on community peer to peer groups to support NICU families post discharge.
22 Mar 2021
Frontiers of Care: Young, Fit and Life After a Stroke
Since her early teens, strange feelings of dizziness and nausea would occasionally overcome Kim Taylor. Otherwise healthy and active, she thought it was nothing serious. A chance phone call to discuss a sports-related injury led her to a diagnosis, but that was just the beginning of her medical troubles. Just as she was getting ready to graduate university and start her professional career, she found herself unexpectedly receiving care at Bridgepoint Active Healthcare and relearning basics like how to walk and talk.
Guests:
Kimberley Taylor is a 25-year old former varsity basketball athlete who recently graduated with an M.Sc from St. Francis Xavier University. She works for Natural Resources Canada.
Dr. Kim Coros is a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician at Bridgepoint Active Healthcare. She works with Olympic, Paralympic and other high-performance athletes through the Canadian Sport Institute.
22 Mar 2021
Frontiers of Care: Inside the Long-Term Care Crisis
When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Canada, staff at Mount Sinai Hospital were anticipating a rise of cases in acute care. Instead, the immediate crisis arose elsewhere: inside long-term care homes, affecting some of Canada’s most vulnerable residents. Hospitals were paired with long-term care homes to slow the tide of rising case counts. Two healthcare professionals from Mount Sinai Hospital walk us through their involvement in one long-term care home’s COVID-19 journey. Learn about the lessons, innovations, and emotions they experienced as they worked tirelessly to help workers and residents.
Guests:
Dr. Nathan Stall is a geriatrician at Mount Sinai Hospital. He is also a research fellow at the University of Toronto, with an interest in older adults, people living with dementia and residents of long-term care homes.
Carla Loftus is a clinical nurse specialist in psychiatry at Mount Sinai Hospital. She holds an adjunct clinical appointment at the Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto.
22 Mar 2021
Frontiers of Care: Treating Disease In-Utero
When Alana Robertson became pregnant, she hadn’t heard of in-utero surgeries, or imagined she might one day need one. But when she learned her unborn baby was showing signs of spina bifida, she was open to anything that might help him. She learned that the surgeons at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital are global leaders in maternal fetal medicine, and found herself becoming one of the first people in Canada to undergo an in-utero surgery designed to treat spina bifida.
Guests:
Alana Robertson is a mental health worker for CMHA. She lives in a small town east of Peterborough with her husband, son and dog. She is a founding board member of SBCAN, advocate and one of the first women in Canada to undergo fetal surgery.
Dr. Tim Van Mieghem is a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital and associate professor at the University of Toronto.
22 Mar 2021
Frontiers of Care: A Unique Cancer Treatment
André Parisien was enjoying retirement when he received a sudden diagnosis of cancer. It was spreading through his abdominal cavity. After surgery failed to get rid of it, he learned he still had a chance of survival through a special treatment called HIPEC. The challenge was this treatment involves pumping a hot chemotherapy drug through your body.
Guests:
André Parisien is a retired phys Ed and English teacher, living in Wendover, Ontario. His students know him as “Mr. P.”
Dr. Andrea McCart is a surgical oncologist at Mount Sinai Hospital and Princess Margaret Cancer Centre where she started the Peritoneal Malignancy Program in 2011. She is also an associate professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Toronto and a clinician-scientist at the Sinai Health’s Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute.
22 Mar 2021
Frontiers of Care: Mount Sinai Hospital - A Story of Firsts
In the 1920s, a determined group of Jewish women dreamed of opening a hospital to serve their community. They knocked on doors, collecting nickels and dimes, until – against all odds - they were able to purchase a small building on Yorkville Avenue that would become Mount Sinai Hospital. Over the years, staff and volunteers at Mount Sinai overcame discrimination, funding challenges and even forces of nature, to build a world-class hospital. Today, that spirit of perseverance lives on as the hospital prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary.
Guests:
Lesley Barsky is the author of From Generation to Generation: A History of Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital.
Maxine Granovsky Gluskin is the co-chair of Sinai Health Foundation's Board of Directors. She is the President of Maxine Gran Investments. She has served on many not-for-profit boards, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada and The Bentway.
The voices of Lillian Gollom and Dr. Minnie Cohen are used with permission from the Ontario Jewish Archives.
20 Jul 2020
Providing Care From the Comfort of Home
Dr. Mayura Loganathan and nurse practitioner Sheena Luck talk to Dr. Howard Ovens about the home care program they created, and the challenges of providing excellent care outside of a hospital setting. Initially set up to to serve frail seniors who had difficulty coming into the hospital, they've since expanded the program to include a wide range of others homebound patients, including those who receive palliative care, in an effort to prevent emergency visits and hospitalizations.
10 Jul 2020
Planning A Pregnancy During a Pandemic
For women who've struggled with mental health issues like anxiety, PTSD, eating disorders planning a pregnancy can be challenging enough - let alone during a pandemic. Dr. Dalfen talks to Dr. Ovens about caring and supporting mothers - and fathers - through her Perinatal Mental Health and Telemedicine Program, and the promise and peril of providing virtual care.
25 Jun 2020
Good enough is pretty darn good: on institutional preparedness
Dr. Gary Newton talks to Dr. Howard Ovens about reactive leadership at Mount Sinai Hospital. As the first wave of a global pandemic passes and as global protests against anti-Black racism continue, Dr. Newton ruminates on the ways the hospital’s culture changed for the better and how institutional preparedness remains a major marker of flattening the spread of COVID-19.
23 Jun 2020
How COVID-19 has impacted oncology and cancer patient care
Dr. Christine Brezden-Masley talks to Dr. Howard Ovens about the ways the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted oncology and cancer patient care. As Ontario’s lockdown is being lifted, and as other provinces and countries reopen non-essential services, Dr. Masley reflects on how she’s working with infectious disease specialists to adopt new ways of treating and responding to both urgent and non-urgent oncology treatments, and surgeries.
12 Jun 2020
The Trials and Tribulations of Testing and Research in a Time of Pandemic
Dr. Jeff Wrana talks to Dr. Howard Ovens about the challenges and importance of ramping up testing for the coronavirus, and the danger of "hysteria" around COVID-19. Dr. Wrana outlines how some studies are happening at breakneck speed, leading to "legitimate but very preliminary results" that make attention-grabbing but misleading headlines in the desperate push for progress.
4 Jun 2020
It's a Marathon, Not A Sprint
Dr. Maureen Shandling talks to Dr. Howard Ovens about the realities of working in a COVID-19 world and how they're impacting care, staff, and families. She also reflects on the protests against police brutality in the U.S, and explores their resonance and relevance to public health issues here in Canada.
2 Jun 2020
Staying Resilient In the Face of a Pandemic
Dr. Bob Maunder talks to Dr. Howard Ovens about finding resilience during challenging times, and how difficult that can be in the face of a pandemic with no end in sight. Hear Dr. Maunder stress the value of close relationships, the importance of asking for help, the reward of exercise and laughter, and the case for doing things that help others and bring you pleasure.
29 May 2020
Babies Don't Stop For A Virus
Birth is usually a time of celebration, but during a pandemic, it requires some extra care and caution. Drs. Prakesh Shah and Wendy Whittle join Dr. Howard Ovens to talk about how urgency, compassion, and collaboration are guiding them through providing maternal and neo-natal care during this time. They share stories of mothers who have delivered babies while having COVID-19, newborns who arrive in the world with the virus, and how it impacts everyone - from the parents, the newborn, and medical staff - who are sometimes doubling as the support person for mothers delivering without their usual support network to lean on in the operating room. But despite the challenges, hear how Sinai Health staff lean on non-verbal communication, smiles, and touch to guide new mothers through the birth of their newborns even from behind a hat, masks, shield and gloves.
23 May 2020
Bringing Nobility and Grace to the End of A Life
Dr. Russell Goldman talks to Dr. Howard Ovens about the challenges of providing palliative care during the pandemic. Hear how video calls are making up for in-person visits, and how staff, patients, and families are trying their best to adopt under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Dr. Goldman also shares how his patients can tell that he is still smiling under his mask, the amount of times he's been 'adopted' by families he's giving care to, and how he responds to the question he always gets about his work: "How do you do that all day?"
19 May 2020
The Tragedy of Long-Term Care in the Pandemic
Dr. Mark Lachmann talks to Dr. Howard Ovens about the tragedy that is unfolding in long-term care homes during this pandemic, the structural problems that explain why they have been the hardest hit, and the lack of oversight and accountability in long term care overall. Dr. Lachmann explains why the deaths unfolding in long-term care are not inevitable, and outlines his hope that this pandemic will transform the level of care that is given to elders in our communities.
11 May 2020
Getting Tested and Keeping Safe, with Dr. Jennie Johnstone
Dr. Ovens talks to Dr. Jennie Johnstone about testing for COVID-19, including how accurate the test is, and how even a negative result is not the golden ticket people may think it is. Dr. Johnstone also talks about how she is keeping patients — especially those at the highest risk — and health-care workers safe, which includes the difficult decision to prevent visitors from seeing loved ones at the hospital. Lastly, Dr. Johnstone talks about how she is coping with the demands of working through the pandemic, and managing the immense responsibility she bears of keeping everyone safe.
11 May 2020
How We Got Here, with Dr. Andrew Morris
In our kick-off episode, Dr. Ovens takes us through why this podcast matters. With so much information out there about the pandemic, it's never been more important to separate fact from disinformation. And that's what every episode will do — together with another Sinai Health leader, Dr. Ovens will bring the latest information on the pandemic: where we are today and what may lay ahead. In conversation with this week's guest, infectious disease specialist Dr. Andrew Morris, Dr. Ovens discusses the origin of the outbreak, how it's transmitted, the best ways to protect against it, and the challenges of re-opening after lockdown.
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