Annual Report
Department of Medicine 2011
Submitted by Dr. James Martin, Interim Chair
Compiled by Ms. Josée Cloutier, Senior Administrative Coordinator This report has been updated with new website links
INDEX
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3
SECTION 1 – UNIT STATUS UPDATE 5
SECTION II – GRANTS, PUBLICATIONS AND SERVICE OUTSIDE MCGILL 7
SELECTED DIVISIONAL ACTIVITIES AND HIGHLIGHTS 9
DEPARTMENTAL SUCCESSES 38
CONCLUDING COMMENTS 39
APPENDIX I - HONOURS, AWARDS AND PRIZES (2011) 40
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Research and publications
The publications by members of the Department of Medicine number 1165 and these publications cover a broad range of research interests from basic biomedical science to population health. The research performed is supported by $49,066,770 in funding. The impact of the research is difficult to evaluate in a comprehensive fashion given its breadth and quantity. However the volume of work that is published in excellent journals is a strong testimony to its quality. Members of the Department are an integral part of the administration of research through participation as academic advisors in the hospital network and through involvement in the governance of the MUHC Research Institute.
Teaching and learning (undergraduate and graduate)
Undergraduate teaching is provided by members of the Department of Medicine in many departments within the
Faculty of Medicine but also outside the Faculty. The graduate students supervised by Department of Medicine members are in many departments within and outside the Faculty of Medicine. The principal program for graduate student supervision, the Division of Experimental Medicine, currently has 254 students registered in diploma, MSc and PhD studies but there are many other students registered elsewhere. Student bursaries garnered in the past year were valued at $1,939,498. There are numerous workshops and research symposia organized by the different divisions of the Department of Medicine as well as the Division of Experimental Medicine that provide excellent opportunities for students to present their work and to receive constructive criticism.
Involvement in the community
Numerous scientific and educational events have been held by the Department members for the community at large.
Honours, awards, and prizes
These were numerous. A brief selection is given: Dr. Robyn Tamblyn was appointed Scientific Director,
Institute of Health Services & Policy Research, CIHR; Dr. Ernesto Schiffrin is President elect of the International
Society of Hypertension (2011-12); Dr. Robert Sladek received the Joe Doupe Young Investigator Award; Drs.
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Albert Aguayo and Peter Macklem (posthumously) were inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame; Dr. Tom
Maniatis won the RCPSC Program Director of the Year Award; Dr. Michelle Elizov was named to the Faculty
Honour List for Educational Excellence; Dr. Margaret Becklake was named Grande Officière de l’Ordre du Quebec;
Drs. Maurice McGregor and Sylvia Cruess were inducted as Officers of the Order of Canada.
A complete list of prestigious honours, awards and prizes conferred on members of our Department is appended at the end of this report (Appendix I) and is also posted at the following website link: https://www.mcgill.ca/deptmedicine/files/deptmedicine/summary_honours_awards_prizes_2011.pdf
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SECTION 1 – UNIT STATUS UPDATE
The Department of Medicine is the largest department in the Faculty of Medicine and it enjoys a tri-partite mission of teaching, research and the delivery of high quality and innovative clinical care. The over-arching objective of the Department of Medicine is to excel and indeed lead in these various areas in Canada and abroad. Strong traditions of academic excellence place the Department at the centre of attempts to promote the academic mission within the university hospital network. Changing societal and institutional values are providing challenges to the achievement of excellence. The obstacles to an academic career are many and young faculty members are re-thinking their choices. Declining funding for research in the areas traditionally pursued by the members of the
Department represents a major threat. Strong and concerted action on the part of the University and the hospitals is necessary to sustain our rich culture of academic excellence.
The Department of Medicine at the time of writing has approximately 450 full time faculty members that are engaged full time in its research, educational, administrative and clinical activities. The Department encompasses a broad range of research disciplines, teaching and training and programs of clinical care. We have PhD medical scientists and tenure track or tenured physician scientists that number 175 and 225 of the newly termed contract academic staff (CAS). The Department comprises 13 divisions; Allergy and Immunology, Cardiology,
Dermatology, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Experimental Medicine, Gastroenterology and Hepatology,
General Internal Medicine, Geriatrics, Hematology, Infectious Diseases, Nephrology, Respiratory Medicine and
Rheumatology. Medical Biochemistry, although not currently a full division, is also under the academic supervision of the Department. The Critical Care Division is now subsumed by the Department of Critical Care at the MUHC but many of its members are in the Department of Medicine through their appointments in the
Respiratory Division. The Divisions of Medical Oncology and Palliative Care have their home in the Department of
Oncology with cross-appointments to Medicine. The Department is also responsible for the appointing of emergency physicians that do not currently have a separate university department. The Division of Experimental
Medicine runs the graduate programs for the Department and is one of the largest programs in the Faculty.
Through the system of cross-appointments and associate memberships, members of the Department of Medicine are strongly linked for research and teaching with other groups including the MGH Division of Neurology (with
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Neurology and Neurosurgery), the McGill AIDS Centre (with Microbiology and Immunology), the McGill Bone
Centre (with Dentistry) and the McGill Nutrition and Food Science Centre (with Agriculture and Environmental
Sciences). The Department boasts several leading units of importance to the McGill community including the
Meakins-Christie Laboratories, the Centre for Host Resistance and the McGill Centre for Tropical Medicine.
Members of the Department create numerous intra-institutional links, through teaching functions in many other
Departments (e.g. Human Genetics, Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology, Biochemistry, Pharmacology,
Physiology, Anatomy and Cell Biology, Epidemiology Biostatistics and Occupational Health, Pathology, etc). The teaching, research and administrative contributions to these departments are non-negligible.
The divisions report to the Interim Chair (Dr. Jim Martin) via the Executive Committee of the Department of
Medicine that includes Dr. Michael Bonnycastle (Physician-in-Chief, St. Mary’s Hospital), Dr. Joyce Pickering
(Interim Physician-in-Chief) and Dr. Ernesto Schiffrin (Vice-Chair, Research and Physician-in-Chief, Jewish
General Hospital). The committee reviews recruitment and attempts to harmonize growth among the different components of the Department. This is particularly important for our educational mission and increasingly so for research and clinical missions as inter-institutional collaboration increases. Success in creating an integrated academic Department has been partial, as reflected in a reporting process which does not evenly deal with the academic activities across all sites. Certain divisions of the Department are well integrated clinically, others not and these latter function autonomously with little evidence of collaborative activity, other than that required for the teaching of students and the training of residents.
A nominative list of our members and their academic ranks is available for consultation at the following website link: https://www.mcgill.ca/deptmedicine/files/deptmedicine/listofacademicstaff_dec2011.pdf
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SECTION II – GRANTS, PUBLICATIONS AND SERVICE OUTSIDE MCGILL
Data on research funding for the past 12 months for the Department members at the MUHC were made available from the MUHCRI and continue to show the trends in decline reflected in previous years. The total funding was
$49,066,770 which was a substantial fall from the previous figure of $66,439,347. The fall was attributable to decline in all sources but in particular contract research and unrecognized funds (e.g. pharmaceutical contracts).
These are worrisome trends, although quite predictable. Declining success rates at operating grants competitions, in particular the Canadian Institutes of Health Research have taken their toll. Re-orientation of provincial and national research priorities towards teams and away from individual investigators, the traditional strength in our
Department and doubtlessly in the Faculty of Medicine as a whole, is no doubt responsible in large part. Further focus on pillars three and four of the CIHR will only serve to worsen the situation in the immediate future. Student bursaries have declined from $2,711,604 to $1,939,498. Of course these statistics will track operating funds.
Perhaps a future strategy will be to offer some operating funds to investigators to accompany internal bursaries awarded by either the University or the MUHCRI. Data for the JGH and for the Department members in the Lady
Davis Institute are reported separately and not available to me at the time of writing.
Publications (2010 only since data for 2011 will be available only in the Fall) continue to be large in number and many appear in the best of journals. The following table summarizes the statistics provided from the database of the MUHCRI for scientists working at the MUHC and those in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery but cross-appointed to the Department of Medicine.
Category Group Publication Count Authorship Count
Peer-Reviewed Articles 542 685
Peer-Reviewed Case Reports 15 20
Peer-Reviewed Clinical Trials 127 172
Review Articles 100 116
Chapters 2 2
Books (Editor) 34 36
Book (Author) 6 7
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Conference Proceedings 1 1
Non-Refereed Articles 3 4
Institutional Publication 6 7
Total 836 1050
Faculty at the JGH published an additional 329 papers/reviews/chapters. Data are not available from St. Mary’s
Hospital. These numbers are therefore an under-estimate of the global productivity of our members but are not reduced from the past year.
The 2010 MUHC Publications and the 2011 JGH Publications can be found at the following website link: https://www.mcgill.ca/deptmedicine/research/publications
Publications for the year 2011 for the MUHC will be available on-line at the same website link in the Fall 2011.
The Division of Experimental Medicine is large and currently accommodates 254 graduate students in its programs. It has graduated 73 students in the past academic year. It is well organized and closely supervised.
The students in the PhD program still require about 5.6 years to complete their graduate studies, essentially unchanged from previous years. The graduate students have an annual research day which is now in its 11th iteration. This Annual McGill Biomedical Graduate Conference was very successful, involving 124 research presentations (predominantly posters), 8 oral presentations, an International Keynote Speaker (Dr. Christian Jobin from University of North Carolina School of Medicine - Chapel Hill). For the first time in many years there has been a decline in enrolment in the PhD program. Whether this is noise or a reflection of funding cuts remains to be established, although it seems hard to imagine that there is not a relationship between the two phenomena.
Many students are enrolled in other departments of the University reflecting the contributions made by our members to the Faculty of Medicine and indeed other faculties. Further details may be accessed at the following link. https://www.mcgill.ca/deptmedicine/about-us/annual-reports/archives
The Department held its 3rd Annual Research Symposium at the JGH this year, providing an opportunity for exchange and cross-fertilization. Poor support for the event, despite excellent speakers and high quality science, is a concern.
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SELECTED DIVISIONAL ACTIVITIES AND HIGHLIGHTS
Allergy and Clinical Immunology
The Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology has been a traditional strength at the MUHC and McGill.
Currently headed by Dr. Chris Tsoukas, there are strong programs in teaching and research and a broad range of clinical activities involving the diseases usually treated by this specialty but also great deal of activity directed towards infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis because of the immunological impacts of these diseases.
Thus there are major collaborations with other divisions such as Infectious Diseases and Hematology. These common areas of clinical interest have also resulted in joint research endeavours. New links are being established with the Respiratory and Dermatology Divisions to bring expertise in allergy to these areas.
The Division has a range of research programs that range from fundamental studies of T cell biology, genetics of host resistance to infectious diseases (e.g. tuberculosis, leprosy, leishmaniasis and malaria), and autoimmune disease to clinical research involving systemic lupus erythematosis and rheumatoid arthritis. The Division's members are present nationally and internationally in these areas of research. Specialized clinical programs have been established that are aligned with many of the areas of research. Investigators are funded through CIHR,
NIH and other major agencies. More than 65 peer reviewed papers were published by Division members.
Of particular note Dr. Ciriaco Piccirillo, a distinguished researcher and internationally recognized expert on regulatory T cells, established an Immune Phenotyping Platform for Research Institute of MUHC. He is also a co- director of the Infection and Immunity Axis of the Research Institute of the MUHC and Director of the FOCIS
Center of Excellence in Translational & Clinical Immunology. Dr. Danuta Radzioch filed provisional patents in
Canada and the European Union on the use of fenretinide. Indications included the treatment of acute Spinal
Cord Injury and in preventing neurological disorders caused by inflammatory processes affecting CNS. In addition, an Orphan Drug application for fenretinde for treatment of Lung infection in CF patients infected with
Pseudomonas aeruginosa was filed to the EU Regulatory Agency in June 2011 following approval by the FDA in
April 2010.
Members of the Division teach extensively at the undergraduate, graduate and post graduate level in the
Departments of Medicine, Experimental Medicine, Physiology, Biochemistry, Microbiology & Immunology,
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Neurosciences, Human Genetics and Parasitology. A total of 13 Post-Doctoral Fellows, 24 PhD students, 10
Masters Students, and 16 Honors Undergraduate students were supervised last year by its members.
The Division awaits with apprehension the consequences of the move of many of the Divisions but not the
Division of Allergy to the Glen site. It is anticipated that adequate space will be provided for the clinical and research activities of the Division at the MGH site. Like other Divisions the failure to find a clinical scientist to engage in bench work in the area of allergy has been a concern.
Cardiology
Dr. Nadia Giannetti has assumed the position of Director of Cardiology at the MUHC and the search committee has been re-constituted to search for a McGill University chief. We are hopeful that negotiations to secure an endowed chair will increase the enthusiasm of the best candidates for this position. The Divisions at the MUHC and the JGH are now poised to embark on a collaborative endeavour to secure single leadership for this key area of medical care and medical science. A highly successful McGill Cardiology Research Day was held in conjunction with the visit of this year’s Arthur and Louis Lucian Award winner, Dr. Shaun Coghlin from UC San
Francisco. This prestigious award has been given to outstanding scientists in the area of cardiovascular disease by a committee of top class international scientists recruited, in recent years by Dr. Jacques Genest who has effectively stewarded the process.
On the clinical front several new services have been organized. Rapid Access Clinic, to offer rapid access to care to patients presenting to the ER with non-acute cardiac issues; a Medical-Surgical Valve Clinic for highly specialized valvular heart disease care; AFIB Clinic, Programme FA-CILITE which stands for Atrial fibrillation in an integrated clinic to limit thromboembolic events, a new programme launched in 2012. McGill’s first Cardiac
Electrophysiology Laboratory was inaugurated in 2011 and is a state of the art facility located at the Montreal
General Hospital. Programs in adult congenital heart disease, heart failure, implantable devices and percutaneous valve replacements are novel and exciting endeavours in the clinical domain but also stimulate applied research programs.
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Initiatives in teaching include McGill’s new 2-year Invasive Cardiac Electrophysiology Fellowship Program launched in 2011 under the leadership of Dr. Vidal Essebag. This fellowship allows for clinical and research training of national and international fellows in all areas of cardiac implantable electronic devices and complex ablation procedures. The cardiovascular curriculum in Medicine and Dentistry is currently undergoing a major re- design. The clinical program continues to be a popular choice for subspecialty training and it offers an increasingly interesting training experience.
Research in the Cardiology Division comprises several major themes: Genetics of coronary artery disease and cardiovascular risk factors; Genetics of high density lipoprotein biogenesis; Cellular biology of cholesterol transport; Aspects of vascular biology involving novel vasoconstrictors and atherosclerosis and dyslipidemia.
Assessment of vascular properties using non-invasive methodologies (carotid and femoral arterial ultrasounds, arterial stiffness and vasomotor assessment) is a growing area of research interest performed in conjunction with members of the Division of General Internal Medicine. Health outcomes research, mentioned in a subsequent section under the Division of Clinical Epidemiology, is performed by Division members in the Technology
Assessment Unit and new CIHR funding has been obtained to explore administrative databases.
The AMI-QUEBEC Network, headed by Dr. Thao Huyhn is exploring knowledge translation in the care of coronary artery diseases at 24 Quebec hospitals and 5 pre-hospital agencies. Ms. Wendy Wray, Nurse of the WHHI-
Women's Healthy Heart Initiative, has given public talks about women and heart disease to various groups
(CURVES, The Canadian Women's Club in Montreal, The Atwater Library, The Canadian Council of Women,
Primetime volunteer group, MGH/RVH/JGH, Novartis, Dynamite, WHI Women's Health Symposium, CTV, CJAD,
Wear Red Day's, Red Dress Gala etc).
The Dr. John H. Burgess Distinguished Scholarship, a new scholarship to be given to aboriginal students was established. Elaine Kilabuk, a first year medical student at McGill received the 2011 Award.
Dr. Martin Bernier and Dr. Nicolo Piazza joined the Division as assistant professors, bringing new strengths to the
Division. Dr. Bernier obtained specialty training in Cardiac Electrophysiology at the Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center (Harvard University), and Dr. Piazza pursued interventional cardiology training at the Montreal
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Heart Institute and a two year PhD research fellowship in transcatheter valve therapies at the Erasmus Medical
Center in Rotterdam and a two year clinical fellowship at the German Heart Center, Munich.
Clinical Epidemiology
The Division of Clinical Epidemiology is a research focussed division comprised of twenty-two active faculty members, the majority of whom hold joint faculty positions within various other clinical divisions of the Department of Medicine. Its members lead the MUHC RI Health Outcomes Axis, recently given an excellent rating by the external FRQS review. A Drug Safety and Effectiveness Network team grant ($950,000 from 2011-2014) was awarded to Dr. Michal Abrahamowicz and his co-investigators. This award has attracted talented trainees from all over the world. Dr. Nitika Pant Pai was awarded the Grand Challenges Rising Star in Global Health Award 2011 to develop a strategy to self-test for HIV for South Africa and India. Dr. Ann Clarke successfully renewed an
AllerGen NCE funded program that will receive $800,000 per annum for the next 7 years. Dr. Louise Pilote is Co-
Principal Investigator on a $5.9 million Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) on Metabolic Syndrome study:
“Linking Basic, Clinical & Population Health Research to Prevent and Treat Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and
Complications.” The expected impact of this research will be to measure the magnitude of environment on vascular health.
Members of the Division have also engaged in major collaborations outside the institution. Dr. Theresa Gyorkos has collaborated with the World Health Organization, Brock University, the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de
Honduras, the Ethiopian Health and Nutrition Research Institute, the Institut de recherche pour le développement-
Senegal and Johns Hopkins University, the Asociación Civil Selva Amazonica joint public health projects. Dr.
Kaberi Dasgupta partnered with the James Bay Cree, clinicians and public health staff to develop tailored strategies for the prevention and management of obesity-related complications and with colleagues in India towards the development of a McGill Canada India Research Centre of Excellence. Dr. Mark Goldberg has completed several major studies on environmental pollution and risk factors for breast cancer. Dr. Robyn Tamblyn has been made a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Several
Division members are organizing major conferences, including the First International Congress on Whole Person
Care.
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The Divisional faculty members teach multiple graduate courses through the Department of Epidemiology,
Biostatistics and Occupational Health and the School of Physical and Occupational Therapy. Faculty also contribute to teaching in the School of Environment and in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. A
Division member directs the MUHC Technology Assessment Unit, which provides support to the hospital in undertaking difficult resource evaluation and allocation.
Dermatology
The Division is largely devoted to clinical care and to the teaching and training of residents but has expanded its research focus in the past 12 months. The training program has attracted 22 residents that will receive training in the current year. Dr. Linda Moreau has assumed the role of Division Director but will continue as training program director until the next accreditation. She is energetic and ambitious for her division and strongly committed to enriching its academic components. The expansion of teaching into some of the specialized off-site out-patient clinics has permitted residents to be exposed to novel techniques and to experienced clinicians not currently practicing in the hospital setting. Well-structured programs are in place to provide teaching in related areas such as pathology. A welcome development has been the establishment of a wet lab for the Division based at the RVH site. The laboratory is equipped to permit the studies of the analysis of patterns of gene expression that may predict the course of cutaneous T cell lymphomas (CTCL). A grant has been received from the Canadian
Dermatology Foundation to expand this study to a Canadian population of CTCL patients. A specialized clinic for the assessment of contact dermatitis continues to attract trainees from outside the McGill orbit. A graduate of the
McGill program, Dr. Monica Stanciu, will also be recruited into the Division, following additional training this coming year. Dr. Denis Sasseville continues to take a major leadership role nationally and internationally in the area of contact dermatitis. Together with other speakers from Germany, UK and Kuwait, he organized a 3 day
Contact Dermatitis Symposium. The Division holds an annual McGill Dermatology Research Day.
The Division is recognized for its strong commitment to patient care and excellent teaching. Due to a high volume of patients of diverse ethnic backgrounds and the enthusiasm and dedication of its core division members, it has trained a strong cohort of highly capable Canadian and foreign clinical dermatologists, many of whom are now renowned experts whose activities contribute to the excellent reputation of McGill University. The Division has
13 established regional dermatology coverage in Rouyn-Noranda, and has developed a protocol to answer queries and consultations from physicians in the outlying regions of the McGill RUIS territory.
Endocrinology and Metabolism
The Division continues to be a strong academic unit. Dr. Simon Wing has stepped down as director and the clinical/teaching and research functions of the director have been have assumed by Drs. Mark Sherman and
Stéphane Laporte, respectively. A search committee is working to find and attract a strong candidate to maintain the tradition of academic excellence within this Division. Among the notable success in research was the awarding of an FRQS Strategic Initiative grant to identify biomarkers for disease progression in fatty liver disorders. A CIHR award for Canadian Multicentre Osteoporosis Study has also been secured by Dr. David
Goltzman as principal investigator. Division members have published well with some very high quality papers.
Division members provide teaching in a number of departments (e.g. Biochemistry, Pharmacology) and have developed new courses in areas such as toxicology. There is active participation in undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral and resident teaching. The latter is enriched through the organization of highly specialized clinics, as detailed below, which provide unique exposures to clinical trainees.
The Division provides highly specialized clinical care through specialized clinical programs that include the Insulin
Pump Program, Endocrine Tumors Clinic, Reproductive Endocrinology Clinic, Home Total Parenteral Nutrition
Program and the Clinic for Hereditary Bone Disorders. These clinics and programs provide unique opportunities for clinical trainees. Dr. Wen Hu has been recruited for expertise in the area of obesity. One of the major challenges to the Division is the uncertainty surrounding its accommodation at the Glen site, as it is the wish of the Division to have its major clinical and research activities based there. One of the objectives for the coming year is to establish a database to allow effective clinical research. On the clinical side there are plans to establish a transition clinic with the Montreal Children’s Hospital.
Division members have been active in the community. For example, Dr. David Morris went to Haiti after the earthquake to aid in the Medical treatment of the earthquake victims and to help set up hospital services. Dr.
Jean-François Yale was co-organizer and co-chair of the annual Canadian Diabetes Association/ Canadian
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Society for Endocrinology and Metabolism Annual Meeting. Dr. Vassilios Papadopoulos was instrumental in organizing the 2011 American Society of Andrology meeting,
The Division faces challenges related to the lack of adequate space at the Montreal General Hospital Site.
However a commitment to renovation of suitable space has been obtained from the Foundation of the MGH and the MUHC administration.
Gastroenterology
The Division has strong teaching activities at all levels from medical students to fellows in training. There are weekly academic half days that provide teaching during a period of protected time. There are monthly web conferences (Basic Science Lecture series) connecting the National GI Training Programs. Members deliver teaching to students in Med 1 in gastrointestinal physiology. There is also a first clinical exposure of students, integrated within the Physicianship course. Several faculty members serve as Osler Fellows, mentoring medical students throughout all four years. There is a therapeutic endoscopy training fellowship, of which there are only three in Canada. The esophageal ultrasound training program has the largest clinical exposure in the country.
There are established inflammatory bowel disease and hepatology fellowships. A 2-day workshop to provide patient centered endoscopy training at the highest possible level is provided. A new multimedia room connected to the endoscopy and radiology suites will enhance live teaching of endoscopy.
There is a growing research program within the Division. The researchers in the division have strong collaborative links within McGill (epidemiology, bioinformatics, genetics, cell & molecular biology, immunology, microbiology, nutrition and metabolism). There are a number of significant external collaborations (Quebec Inflammatory Bowel
Disease (IBD) Genetics Consortium that has been successful in identifying IBD susceptibility genes); collaborations with other Universities include Montreal, Sherbrooke, British Columbia, Toronto, and Ottawa, and in the USA UCLA, U of Chicago, Mayo Clinic and Mt Sinai, and in Europe University College Cork, Ireland.
Members also participate in collaborative multicenter clinical trials in the field of therapeutic IBD and in the field of chronic viral hepatitis and HIV. There is strong research in the area of quality assessment/quality improvement in colonoscopy and colorectal cancer screening.
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Innovative clinical endeavours include the establishment of an IBD Day Centre at the MGH site to open in
September 2012, a quality assurance project (led by Dr. Alan Barkun) and a program of endoscopic radiofrequency ablation of early esophageal neoplasm. This is the first such program in Quebec. A population- based provincial Colorectal Cancer Screening program with the Agence de lutte contre le Cancer and The Institut
National de Santé Public du Canada is being established with the MUHC assuming a leadership role in this program. There are a number of specialized clinical programs: The McGill IBD Program (MGH, RVH), Hepatology and Liver transplant (RVH), Esophageal program including radiofrequency ablation, Gastrointestinal Motility
Program (MGH), Therapeutic Endoscopy and Biliary program (MGH, RVH). The McGill IBD day center (MGH) will serve as a multidisciplinary platform for providing state-of-the art care for IBD patients.
The Division has considerable involvement in the community. Local conferences for families and patients with
IBD, and in conjunction with the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation (CCFC) a one-day conference is held for adolescent IBD patients transitioning to the adult GI service. Dr. Peter Ghali was involved in the establishment of the MELD score to be used across the province for scoring end-stage liver disease. Dr. Marc Deschenes lectures on liver disease to various communities. Proceeds from his talks go to buying gift/food baskets for sick children at
Sainte-Justine and their families.
The Division has provided an excellent plan for growth in all academic and clinical areas in the coming year.
Geriatrics
The McGill University Division of Geriatric Medicine of the Department of Medicine is comprised of faculty from the Divisions of Geriatric Medicine of the Jewish General Hospital (JGH), the McGill University Health Centre
(MUHC), and St. Mary's Hospital. The Division has strong teaching, clinical and research programs and is a model of integration across all clinical sites. Faculty from the Department of Family Medicine play a key role in the
Division and the Division is closely linked to the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry of the Department of Psychiatry and the Division of Clinical Epidemiology. Faculty members with expertise in epidemiology, molecular and cell biology and neuroscience with an active and significant interest in aging and collaborating in research with division members are integrated within the division. Investigators from other departments have shown interest in some of the geriatric programs and have requested membership in the Division. There is ongoing and close
16 collaboration for clinical work, teaching and research with staff from nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and social work. There is significant collaboration with colleagues from the Université de Montréal as well as other
Quebec and Canadian Universities in areas of research and program development. International collaboration has also grown.
Research in neurobiology and dementia, informatics, health services, frailty, pharmacoepidemiology, nutrition, rehabilitation, emergency medicine, long term care, pain and education continue to represent the existing strengths of the Division with programs that cross hospital, department and university lines and in some cases integrate bench-to-bedside-to population. Oncology and older persons, as well as end of life care, are emerging interests. There is increasing collaboration amongst these major research teams with colleagues from Quebec,
Canada and internationally. Members of the Division lead major research programs with funding from the
Canadian Institutes on Health Research (CIHR) and the Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec (FRQS).
The 14th Annual McGill Division of Geriatric Medicine Research Day was held in 2011 and there were 60 attendees, principally graduate students from McGill but also from Université de Montreal and UQAM. There were oral and poster presentations with a great diversity of topics pertaining to aging, ranging from biological sciences and clinical services to population studies and evaluative research.
The Geriatric Medicine Clerkship for all medical students (third and fourth year) is in its 9th year. The committee leads the clerkship curriculum with innovative web-based methods for teaching and evaluation. The student evaluations have been very good to excellent. The McGill Division of Geriatric Medicine supervises residents from
PGY-1 in Internal Medicine (including Neurology and other subspecialties with a mandatory year in Internal
Medicine), Family Medicine for a one-month “selective” (“mandatory elective”) rotation; and residents from
Psychiatry for a one-month elective rotation in Geriatric Medicine. The Division of Geriatric Medicine teaches all
McGill Family Medicine residents at St. Mary’s Hospital and the SMBD Jewish General Hospital. The Geriatric
Medicine Specialty Training Program is a two-year accredited program, leading to eligibility to sit the Royal
College Examination in Geriatric Medicine. With funding from the Quebec Research Network on Aging (FRSQ), the Division will also be able to offer a bursary for a trainee to fulfill requirements for the Royal College Clinical
Investigator Program and complete a Master’s level degree while completing the specialty training three year program.
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The major challenge faced by the Division is ongoing recruitment of new faculty members, as the specialty still does not attract as many trainees as required to meet the clinical needs.
Hematology
The Division of Hematology has active programs in research, teaching and the delivery of highly specialized clinical care. The MUHC and JGH sites cooperate in teaching programs and in the training of specialty residents.
The Divisions otherwise function largely autonomously.
The Division has a range of research themes. Dr. Chantal Séguin has funding from the Leukemia & Lymphoma
Societies of the US and Canada and was awarded a Chercheur Boursier Clinicien from the FRSQ Junior 2. Dr
Séguin is also a co-investigator on a CIHR team grant in collaboration with the paediatric oncology group at CHU
Sainte-Justine. She also received major funding ($500,000) from a private donation for a new micro CT Scan
(SkyScan 1172) which is also shared with other investigators from the REPARATIOn program and with researchers from other centers outside McGill. She investigates the molecular pathophysiology of osteonecrosis
(ON). Dr. Michael Sebag has established a research laboratory for the study of myeloma and bone disease and is funded by the National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC), the Leukemia Lymphoma Foundation, and the Cancer
Research Society. He has established strong collaborative links with members of the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry at McGill as well as with members of other divisions of medicine. Dr. Nathalie Johnson was recruited in 2011 having completed a PhD program at the University of British Columbia and was awarded an
FRSQ Chercheur Boursier Clinicien for her research in the molecular pathology of malignant lymphoma. Dr. Sarit
Assouline directs the JGH Hematology-Oncology clinical research program and is an active member of the hematology-oncology group at NCIC and runs Phase I and Phase II clinical trials through the Clinical Research
Unit at the JGH. Dr. Mark Blostein has contributed significantly to the protein biochemistry of factor IX and also has been an integral part of the clinical trials effort of the Thrombosis Group at the JGH. Dr. Jean-Pierre Routy has instituted the Quebec Primary HIV-Infection cohort, which is generating important findings in HIV pathogenesis and drug resistance. Dr. John Storring, in collaboration with other experts throughout Canada, helped develop pan-Canadian evidence-based treatment guidelines for the use of IMiDS in Myelodysplasia. Dr.
Patricia Pelletier is the local investigator for the multicenter Canadian study “ABLE: Age of Blood Evaluation Trial”.
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Dr. Susan Solymoss participates in clinical trials in the area of venous thrombo-embolic disease. She works in collaboration with Dr. Susan Kahn (JGH site) and Dr. Christine Demers (Quebec City) and the Hamilton thrombosis group. Dr. Chaim Shustik has a primary interest in malignant hematology and participates in national and international clinical trials in leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma. Drs. Gizelle Popradi and Pierre
Laneuville are experts in the area of stem cell transplantation and engage in clinical trials in this area.
Teaching is provided at all levels in the medical school curriculum. The hematology training program has a total of six trainees in the current two-year program. The program was granted full accreditation status both from the
Royal College and an internal review in 2011. Several Division members supervise graduate students and post- doctoral fellows in bench research. Training of residents in highly specialized areas is facilitated by the organization of the Division into highly specialized areas of clinical activity. For example, the molecular laboratory at the JGH teaches molecular diagnostics to hematology fellows.
The Division runs a series of highly specialized hematology clinics and programs : Stem Cell Transplant
(Provincially designated); Photopheresis (Provincially designated); Hemophilia and rare congenital bleeding disorders (Provincially designated); Sickle Cell Disease Clinic; Thalassemia major/intermedia Clinic; High risk obstetrics/hematology Clinic; and the Multiple Myeloma Clinic. The new Segal Cancer Center, the activity of the hematology-oncology clinical service, continues to expand with increasing clinical and research activities as part of the integrated cancer team. The JGH site's hematology stem cell transplant program remains a strong component of the McGill bone marrow transplant program. Dr. Martin Gyger continues to provide leadership for efforts in this area and maintains close collaboration with his MUHC partners and with colleagues at Hôpital
Maisonneuve-Rosemont. The JGH continues as a referral centre for molecular diagnostics for the entire McGill hematology university network. New molecular studies have been initiated for chronic lymphocytic leukemia, myeloproliferative disorders, lymphoma and acute leukemia.
Several Division members are active in scholarly activity outside the institution; an educational conference entitled
"Stem Cell Transplant and You" was directed to future stem cell transplant patients (Dr. Gizelle Popradi). Dr. John
Storring is on the organizing committee for the Canadian Conference of Myelodysplastic Syndromes to be held
19 this year in Montreal. Dr. Jean-Pierre Routy is National co-director of the Immunotherapy and Vaccine Core for the Canadian Health Research Institutes for HIV Trials Network.
Infectious Diseases
The Division of Infectious Diseases has research, teaching and clinical functions in all hospital sites. In addition it comprises some specialized units: Tropical Medicine, HIV, and Chronic Viral Diseases. The Division functions closely with the Departments of Medical Microbiology in the hospitals, and most of the physicians in the Division are also members of Microbiology. Much of its work is done in multidisciplinary groups that include members of the Division, and partners from within Montreal, other Canadian sites, and throughout the world. The Division also assumes responsibility for the Infection Prevention and Control Service in each hospital. There are important inter-departmental links; e.g. the Pediatric Division of Infectious Diseases, since the Microbiology lab at the MCH provides many services for the adult sites and vice versa.
Dr. Norbert Gilmore is Interim Head of HIV-related services and is responsible for the integration of the two
Immunodeficiency Services at the Montreal Chest and the MGH sites. The Division cares for patients with chronic viral Hepatitis, in collaboration with the Division of Gastroenterology. The Primary Immunodeficiency service will continue to operate under Dr. Chris Tsoukas, within the Division of Allergy and Immunology, in collaboration with members of the Division of Infectious Diseases. The J.D. MacLean Centre for Tropical Diseases consists of 5 services and is the largest of its kind in North America. The Pre-travel clinic is a self-financing clinic providing vaccinations, pre-travel advice, and other services for travelers. The Centre also houses the National Reference
Centre for Parasitology, which provides diagnostic reference services, and is funded largely by the federal government via the National Microbiology Laboratory.
The research programs of the Division are numerous, well funded and well published. The Division has arguably the largest number of clinician scientists of any of the Departmental Divisions. The research themes involve major diseases of public health import such as tuberculosis, leishmaniasis, clostridial diarrhoea, HIV, viral hepatitis and span the range of CIHR pillars, for example global health (Dr. Timothy Brewer), HIV (Dr. Mark Wainberg), host defence mechanisms (Dr. Marcel Behr). Large numbers of trainees pass through the successful laboratories of the Division members.
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The Division members continue to provide teaching in several of the departments of the Faculty of Medicine. The
Division of Infectious Diseases is responsible for Unit 7 in the undergraduate medical course known as “Basis of
Medicine”. At the undergraduate and post-graduate level, members contribute to teaching in the Department of
Microbiology and Immunology and also supervise a large number of Master’s and PhD students in Microbiology,
Immunology, and Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health.
Clinical rotations on the Infectious Disease consult service are offered at all hospital sites as well as outpatient rotations at selected Infectious Disease clinics, at the two HIV-based clinics, and in Tropical Medicine. The
Infectious Disease consult service rotation is a compulsory component of Infectious Disease training for Infectious
Disease residents from the University of Sherbrooke. In addition, training in tropical medicine and parasitology, while not obligatory, has become a frequent component of training for residents from the Universities of
Sherbrooke and Montreal, as well as most Dermatology residents from these universities. Every other year, the
Division offers the largest Continuing Medical Education (CME) course in Canada in tropical medicine, consisting of three days of didactic teaching and a full day of clinical parasitology and microscopy.
Currently the greatest challenges to the Division appear to be the lack of adequate space for clinical practice at the MGH, and a shortage of staff members to deal adequately with infection control.
General Internal Medicine
The Division of General Internal Medicine has outstanding leadership and a clear vision of its academic mission.
All aspects of its functioning are strong and it is also a well integrated division across hospital sites. Medical education and teaching are a priority for members and form a large part of their core identity and these activities are highly valued. Their contributions to the teaching of medical students and the training of residents in internal medicine are substantial. Major clinical innovations are actively being developed: a complex care centre, vascular medicine, peri-operative medicine, obstetrical medicine and quality improvement are all projects that have been developed or are in various phases of development. Strategic recruitment is permitting these initiatives. The
Division members provide much key clinical service in all of the hospital sites. Research is intimately linked to the novel clinical programs. The following are examples of such links; Dr. Suzanne Morin is a chercheuse-boursière
21 clinicienne and ranked 1st for her project on treatment strategies for osteoporosis and hip fractures. Drs. Kaberi
Dasgupta and Stella Daskalopoulou were successful in securing an operating grant from CIHR on the relationship between step monitoring and arterial health.
Among the innovative clinical endeavours is the McGill Quality Improvement Centre established by current
Division members and new recruits (Drs. Dev Jayaraman, Laurence Green, Todd Lee (new recruit) and Dr. Blair
Schwartz (GIM Fellow); to join the JGH group upon completion of his master’s degree at Hopkins in QI. Dr David
Hornstein has established a clinic for pre-operative assessment at the MGH site. Dr Jeff Segal will be recruited to
St. Mary’s Hospital following his formation complémentaire in pre-op medicine at Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont.
A vascular medicine clinic was opened at the MGH by Dr. Stella Daskalopoulou and in collaboration with Vascular
Surgery. Dr Khue Ly will join the Vascular Health Unit upon completion of a fellowship in vascular medicine at
Université Laval. Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) funds were obtained for key equipment. Clinical and research databases are being established in parallel. Dr Leora Birnbaum has joined the Division and will play a predominant clinical role in the Vascular Health Unit. New services in Medical Obstetrics and Complex Care are under development.
Outreach to the community is also evident within this Division. Videoconferences of weekly Tuesday Academic
Sessions are teleconferenced to the three Montreal hospitals (JGH, MGH & RVH) and to the outlying regions
Amos, Valleyfield, Hull and Rouyn-Noranda. The 1st workshop on “How to Find a Job in the Community” was held on November 8th, 2011 with presentations from recent GIM graduates.
Many Division members enjoy international reputations and the scope of their activities goes well beyond the
Division. Dr. Ernesto Schiffrin, Chief of the Department of Medicine at the JGH, is distinguished for his career in the field of Hypertension and Vascular Research. He was also selected as one of the two recipients of the 2011
Excellence Award for Hypertension Research, the most prestigious award of the High Blood Pressure Council of the American Heart Association. Dr Tom Maniatis won the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada
Program Director of the Year Award 2011 for his commitment to enhancing residency education. Dr Michelle
Elizov was named to the Faculty Honour List for Educational Excellence.
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Meakins-Christie Laboratories
The Labs continue to be very successful despite a challenging funding environment. There have been no new recruits in the past year. The members are drawn from several divisions of the Department of Medicine but also have members from the Department of Pediatrics. Most of its members have associate memberships in other departments (Human Genetics, Physiology, Bioengineering etc) and contribute to teaching programs in these departments as well through membership in the Division of Experimental Medicine. Researchers have strong intra-institutional (e.g. Physics, Engineering) and extramural collaborations (e.g. NIH, Duke University, Montpelier,
University of Florida). Funding to the group is largely from individual CIHR operating grants and was strengthened by the securing of NSERC grants by several of the members this year. Several members of the Laboratories are heavily engaged in key administrative roles throughout the University and the MUHCRI.
In addition to a substantial record of high quality publications the Laboratories have well-organized pedagogical opportunities for the students. Weekly research conferences with a slate of internationally recognized local and visiting scientists maintains the quality of the presentations and sets the bar for the students. It also provided them with the opportunity to meet with and discuss science and career with the visiting scientists. Journal clubs animated by members of the Laboratories provide invaluable training in the development of critical appraisal of published articles, study design, statistical analysis and state of the art technologies. Work-in-progress seminars are held in the intervening weeks and students are all required on a rotational basis to present their projects. The following courses are run at the Meakins-Christie Laboratories and continue to be popular; Advanced Applied
Physiology Course - Experimental Medicine - 516-507A; Advanced Topics in Respiration Course - Experimental
Medicine 516-508; Biomedical Methods in Medical Research - Experimental Medicine 516-610; Cytokines in
Health and Disease - Pathology 607; Topics on the Human Genome – Biology 568.
The current Director Dr. Qutayba Hamid was awarded the CIHR & Canadian Thoracic Society Distinguished
Lecturer in Respiratory Sciences Award, delivered to the Canadian Thoracic Society in 2011. Two students won prizes for the best presentations in a pan-Canadian competition organised by the Canadian Thoracic Society.
Several won travel awards to the American Thoracic Society annual meeting, based on the quality of their abstracts.
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A high priority for the Laboratories in the coming year or two is to identify a clinical scientist to enhance the potential for translational research within the laboratories.
Medical Biochemistry
Members of the Division teach one-on-one with medical students, residents and fellows within the Endocrine and
Medical Biochemistry rotations as well as Medical Biochemistry Laboratory rotations, PhD Clinical Biochemistry residents and Medical Biochemistry residents in laboratory medicine. Members have also participated in classroom and small group teaching and in the area of continuing education. A one-year Clinical Nutrition
Fellowship is offered at the JGH site. The training program will provide opportunities for fellows to develop clinical competence in the field of clinical nutrition.
Research has been conducted in the area of therapeutic drug monitoring, genetic testing, cancer screening and bone metabolism.
Members of the Division participate in “Formation continue des biochimistes cliniques du Québec”, serve as Chief
Examiner in Medical Biochemistry for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons and Vice-president of
Canadian Association of Medical Biochemistry, A collaborative project (CALIPER) is being performed with Sainte-
Justine hospital as a Canadian initiative to build a pediatric reference range database. A three-week Laboratory
Training Program for laboratory technologists from Gansu Province, China has been developed as part of a collaborative initiative between the JGH laboratory and the Ministry of Health (Gansu, China).
Important clinical developments have been the updating and introduction of clinical testing, the creation of a pathway to implement the transfer of point-of-care testing results into the patient’s electronic database, and the continued efforts to integrate the central laboratories on all three downtown sites. Planning for the new laboratory at the Glen site has been quite active and time-consuming. An updated antiretroviral tandem mass spectrophotometer assay was developed to include three newer drugs. A new MRSA PCR assay was co- developed with Sainte-Justine Hospital. Members of the division provide direct patient care through participation in specialized Lipid Clinics, Adult Genetics Clinic, Osteoporosis Clinics and a lipid clinic at the Institut de
24 recherches cliniques de Montreal (IRCM). Dr. Fabienne Parente is a Medical Biochemist, who started in January
2011 as the laboratory director at the MCH site. She is pursuing a fellowship in Medical Genetics and plans to concentrate her research interests in that area. Drs. Alexis Baass and David Blank are consultants for the laboratory at the Lachute Hospital and the Barrie Memorial Hospital, respectively.
Nephrology
The Nephrology Division continues to excel in the provision of clinical care, to provide high-quality teaching to undergraduate students and post-graduate trainees and to maintain active basic and clinical research programs.
Clinical research interests are strongly rooted in the area of quality assurance. The Division distinguishes itself for a strong program in fundamental research, involving both clinical and medical scientists. The group is productive and publishing excellently. There is mounting concern over the failure to identify research space for the Division members in the MUHC Research Institute at the Glen site.
All members of the Division participate in teaching at many levels. Within the Division there is a strong pedagogical program comprising a weekly Nephrology Clinical Conference and Journal Club and a weekly
Research Conference in collaboration with the CHUM and the MUHC Research Institute Endocrinology, Nutrition,
Metabolism and Kidney Axis. These functions permit exchange of knowledge and exposure of trainees to the highest level of scientific discussion. Teaching is done in the Physiology Department for Med I students, and at various other stages of the medical curriculum. Division members also teach in the area of renal physiology as well as in core teaching for internal medicine and in general surgery core teaching.
The Division provides clinical services in nephrology consultations, hemodialysis, peritoneal and kidney and kidney/pancreas transplantation. Challenges include reorganization of chronic hemodialysis in the context of the move to the Glen site. Loss of clinical capacity, in particular in the dialysis program, will have a major impact on patient care and on the activities of the Division. In addition to general nephrology clinics, the Division operates
Predialysis clinics, which offer specialized multidisciplinary services to patients with advanced chronic renal failure.
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The Division operates a number of tertiary care multidisciplinary clinics, including kidney stones (with Urology and
Nutrition) - monthly, complex hypertension (with Internal Medicine) - monthly, systemic lupus erythematosus and kidney disease (with Rheumatology) - monthly, kidney disease in pregnancy (with Obstetrics, Internal Medicine and Endocrinology) - twice monthly, and pediatric to adult kidney disease transition care (with Pediatric
Nephrology). It operates a nocturnal home hemodialysis program that has however failed to expand because of an inadequate budget. The Division oversees two satellite hemodialysis units in Northern Quebec; coverage is, in part, provided via telenephrology.
A major concern of the Division is the uncertainty surrounding the capacity to place the Division members and their clinical activities within the new Glen campus.
Neurology
The Division of Neurology located at the MGH has strong programs in research teaching and specialized clinical care. Dr. Ronald Postuma is well funded by CIHR and the Parkinson’s Society of Canada to study problems of sleep and somnolence in patients with Parkinson's disease. Dr. Colin Chalk is the McGill PI for two multi-center clinical trials evaluating the place of thymectomy in the treatment of myasthenia gravis that is not associated with a thymoma. He has expanded his research capacity through the acquisition of novel technologies through a CFI award. Dr. Robert Côté is co-PI and member of the steering committees of 2 NIH-funded trials (Secondary
Prevention of Small Stroke and Insulin Resistance Intervention after Stroke) and a Canadian Stroke Network- funded study (Cardiac Monitoring for Stroke Prevention). Dr. Anne-Louise Lafontaine is McGill PI in 2 ongoing industry-sponsored multi-centre clinical trials in movement disorders (Davunetide for the treatment of progressive supranuclear palsy, SYN115 as adjunctive therapy in levodopa-treated Parkinson’s disease).
The Division continues to play a major role in administration and teaching of the first-year medical class during
Unit 6 (Nervous System and Special Senses) of the Basis of Medicine. In particular, Division members act as Unit
Chair (Dr. Colin Chalk), Chief Tutor (Dr. Stuart Lubarsky), and small group tutors (5 members). This Unit is well regarded by students, and is considered by many to be the highlight of the Basis of Medicine. All Division members contribute to Introduction to Clinical Medicine (ICM) neurology small group teaching. Two of the Division members (Drs. Michael Rasminsky and Stuart Lubarsky) are serving as Osler Fellows for the mentoring of
26 medical students of the classes of 2012 and 2014. Resident teaching has long been a strength. Dr. Anne-Louise
Lafontaine continues as the Director of the McGill Neurology Residency Training Program, and Dr. Stuart
Lubarsky continues as a member of the Residency Training Committee. Dr. Colin Chalk was appointed Director,
Curricular Development, Faculty of Medicine. In this role, he will be leading the planning of the new undergraduate medical curriculum in the Faculty, which is to be implemented in September 2013.
Division members are quite engaged in the scholarly community. Dr. Ronald Postuma is Director of the Canadian
Movement Disorders Group Residents Course (2008-present). This 3-day national event brings all senior neurology residents (40) from across the country for intensive teaching in movement disorders. This course is the primary national teaching course in movement disorders. Dr. Postuma is Consultant and Panelist for the National
Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (Parkinson’s disease non-motor features committee) and the
American Academy of Neurology Therapeutics and Technology Assessment Subcommittee (Polysomnography in neurodegenerative disease). Dr. Robert Côté has given several workshops in his area : “Workshop on TIA”,
National Stroke Course for Neurology Residents; “Quality of Stroke Care in Canada”, Canadian Stroke Congress and was Chair of the Advisory Committee in charge of conducting and publishing the first National Stroke Report in Canada “The Quality of Stroke Care in Canada.” funded by the Canadian Stroke Network (Center Network of
Excellence), report published at www.canadianstrokenetwork.ca.
The MGH is the site of 3 subspecialty referral clinics: the McGill Cerebrovascular, Movement Disorders, and
Neuropathy Clinics. In addition to being the sites for consultation and ongoing care of patients with these types of neurological disease, these clinics are important teaching venues for residents. The Movement Disorders Clinic has been recognized since 2008 by the National Parkinson’s Foundation (USA) as a Centre of Excellence for provision of clinical services for patients with Parkinson’s disease and related disorders. In the Cerebrovascular clinic, capacity to see patients with transient ischemic episodes promptly, remains an important preoccupation, and for the most part waiting times are in line with evidence-based clinical guidelines. The Neuropathy Clinic has expanded its clinical staff to include a new MNH-based neurologist and 2 MUHC, allowing the clinic to function weekly throughout the year. The MGH Stroke Unit (including our acute stroke room, with 4 monitored beds and high nursing ratio, and excellent multidisciplinary team) continues to provide quality care for patients with stroke.
The Division continues to provide on-call telephone consultation to hospitals in Abitibi, covering approximately half of nights and weekends. It has not been necessary to resume our on-site support, as the neurological manpower
27 situation in Abitibi has improved and appears to be stable. A tele-neurology service for patients in Nunavik is being gradually established (Dr. Stuart Lubarsky). The initial goal is to use the service to assist with the management of epilepsy patients, and thus avoid unnecessary and costly air transfers of patients to Montreal.
The status of the Division’s role and its in-patient and out-patient activities beyond the 2014 opening of the Glen
Yards remains a source of concern.
Respiratory Division
This Division is a particular strength of the Department. It has strong programs in clinical research supported by the Respiratory Epidemiology Unit and Clinical Research Unit (RECRU). Major themes of research are chronic obstructive lung disease, tuberculosis, asthma, and bronchopulmonary dysplasia. A new recruit currently in training in New York will bring additional expertise in lung cancer at the MUHC site (Dr. Benjamin Smith). He will also develop clinical research in this area as he has training in clinical epidemiology. Dr. Faiz Khan will bring his expertise in education to bear upon the educational programs of the Division. Dr. Stephane Beaudoin currently receiving formation complémentaire at the University of Laval will bring his newly acquired skills to strengthen the services in interventional bronchoscopy.
After a long and distinguished career, including many years as the Director of the Respiratory Division at the
Royal Victoria Hospital, Dr. Manuel Cosio retired in June 2011 and he teaches currently at the University of
Padua. Dr. Peter Macklem passed away in 2011. He had been one of the most outstanding researchers in
Respiratory Medicine at the Meakins-Christie Laboratories besides being Physician-in-Chief for in the Department of Medicine. He was inducted posthumously into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.
.
Members of the Respiratory Division contribute to a variety of graduate level courses; Advanced Topics in
Respiration (507-516) is coordinated by Dr. Basil Petrof; Advanced Biostatistics (Department of Epidemiology and
Biostatistics) by Dr. Andrea Benedetti; Clinical Epidemiology 679 – Dr. Kevin Schwartzman; Practical Aspects of
Protocol Development (McGill summer program in epidemiology and biostatistics) – Dr. Margaret Becklake;
Epidemiology - principles and methods (606A) - Dr Madhukar Pai; Intensive course in Systematic reviews
(summer programme) - Dr Madhukar Pai; Dr. Kevin Schwartzman is Respiratory Program Director and organizes
28 a variety of pedagogical programs for the residents in training. He is engaged in preparations for the Royal
College accreditation in the coming year.
Dr. Richard Menzies assembled a collaborative group in multi drug resistant TB research comprised of investigators from 32 centers around the world. First results of this collaborative work resulted in several policy statements from the World Health Organization including recommendations for treatment of multi drug resistant
TB (published in 2011), diagnosis of drug resistance (forthcoming in 2012), and a statement on total drug resistance (2012).
Division members are active in various professional organizations outside of the institution. Dr. Gaston Ostiguy is
President of the Quebec Lung Association. Dr. Ron Olivenstein is the McGill representative to the Association de
Pneumologues du Quebec. Dr. Richard Menzies is Chair of the tuberculosis committee of the Canadian Lung
Association and will be responsible for editing the new version of the Canadian TB Standards. Dr. James Martin is
Chair of the CIHR Respiratory Operating Grants Panel. Dr. Qutayba Hamid has participated in the development of joint ATS-ERS statements on severe asthma.
The Respiratory Division-RECRU collaborates with various units at McGill such as the School of Physical and
Occupational Therapy, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Faculty of Education, Department of
Kinesiology.
A donor has given over $100,000 towards the purchase of equipment for the therapeutic bronchoscopy project.
As part of the planning for the MUHC redevelopment project, the Respiratory Division is planning a Physicians campaign to raise money for a new center for Respiratory Health at Glen yards campus, where the majority of the
Respiratory division clinical teaching and research activities will be located.
The most important new clinical activity is The Rapid Investigation Clinic for lung cancer, housed at the day hospital at the Montreal Chest Institute. This clinic seeks to substantially reduce the delays in diagnosis and staging of patients with lung cancer and works closely with members of the multi disciplinary lung cancer clinic at the Montreal General Hospital. Referrals for pleural procedures including thoracoscopy and PleurX catheter
29 insertion for diagnosis and management of malignant pleural effusion has expanded, while endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS) continues to be a very active service. These services are major contributions to the McGill hospital network. Clinical ambulatory care has been organized in highly specialized clinics, often involving a team that includes nurse specialists; Asthma Clinic - , MCI, MGH, Bronchoscopy Clinic – MCI, COPD Clinic – MCI,
CSST Clinic – MCI; Cystic Fibrosis Clinic – MCI; Occupational and Environmental Health Clinic – MCI.; Rapid
Investigation Clinic (RIC) - for lung cancer – MCI; Sleep Disorders Clinic – MCI, RVH; Smoking Cessation Clinic –
MCI; Tuberculosis Clinic – MCI; Lung Cancer Clinic – MGH.
The next initiative in lung cancer is to develop a Therapeutic Bronchoscopy service. The Division has been fortunate to have a major donor support the purchase of laser equipment plus a jet ventilator in order to initiate this service, which will be conducted jointly with thoracic surgery at the Montreal General Hospital.
One opportunity is for expansion of links with our partner institutions within the RUIS, particularly in the far North where advances in electronic communication have made telemedicine a reality, but this still requires adaptation on the part of practitioners to utilize more fully.
Dr. Sushmita Pamidi will complete a Masters in Epidemiology and Biostatistics and will join the Respiratory
Division in autumn 2012. Her expertise is sleep medicine with a particular focus in metabolic consequences of sleep disordered breathing. Dr. Sean Gilman has been cross appointed in the Respiratory Division. He holds a primary appointment at Verdun hospital; at the MUHC he will be responsible for the Smoking Cessation program - taking over from Dr. Gaston Ostiquy. Drs. Khan, Smith and Beaudoin are still in further training and will return to join the Division in 2013 or 2014. Dr. Jason Shahin after his formation complémentaire has joined the Department of Critical Care and the Division of Respiratory. He intends to lead the development of randomized clinical trials within Critical Care. This is a weakness of clinical research currently in the MUHC. He will join Dr. Sandra Dial,
Critical Care specialist within the MUHC who also has training in clinical epidemiology.
One major challenge remaining in the redevelopment project at the Glen site is the location of the physicians’ offices and respiratory epidemiology and clinical research unit for which to date there is no obvious solution.
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Planning and adequate space for the physicians and the RECRU remains a top priority for the Division in the coming year.
Rheumatology
The Rheumatology Division has continued to progress under Dr. Henri Menard's leadership. However his term has ended. It is a priority to maintain strong leadership so a search has been initiated with the intention to find a strong academic physician to lead this group. The research programs within the Division range from basic science to cohort studies. These programs are discussed below in the context of the clinical programs that are built around them.
The Division has a variety of teaching conferences across all sites on a weekly basis. Academic half-days are organized to provide formal teaching. Members of the Division continue to participate in undergraduate teaching in Unit 5 (Dr. Michael Stein, coordinator) and Unit 7 (Dr. Devi Banerjee, coordinator) as well as teaching to medical and graduate students and residents in Medicine, Experimental Medicine, Pharmacology and
Therapeutics, Microbiology-Immunology and Clinical Epidemiology programs. A new course involving all of the training programs across the province was organized by Dr. Christian Pineau and his colleague from Université de Montréal). The VIIIth Annual McGill Musculoskeletal Symposium was held at the McGill Faculty Club. Twelve graduate students presented their work at poster sessions with prizes awarded to the best ones. Members of the
Division contribute to courses within several McGill Departments and in the Division of Experimental Medicine.
Specialized programs are being organized to facilitate high quality clinical care and teaching. In regard to the rheumatoid arthritis (RA) program, an area at the RVH site has been renovated to accommodate the activities of the RA Program/Clinic (Dr. Ines Colmegna, coordinator). Novel imaging equipment has been acquired to assess the musculoskeletal system by ultrasound (Dr. Michael Stein). The Canadian ArThritis CoHort – CATCH study, a national effort supported by Pharmas and focusing on the determinants of early arthritis, has been recruiting patients for several years at JGH and in 2011 the RVH site joined this endeavour. In those early RA patients, circulating hematopoietic stem cells are being studied (Dr. Colmegna and a colleague from Biochemistry), serum is being analyzed for evidence of autoimmune markers (CIHR-Euroimmun-Pharma funds to Dr. Henri Ménard) and circulating and synovial fluid T cells mutations are studied by genome wide sequencing (Quebec Consortium
31 for Drug Discovery (CQDM) funds to Drs. Constantin Polychronakos, Brent Richards and Sabrina Fallavollita).
Further, Dr. Henri Ménard is co-investigator in three CIHR-funded longitudinal studies of Early Arthritis cohorts
(prognosis biomarkers; cluster analysis of biomarkers and North-American Natives for pre-clinical genetic and epigenetic risk factors in family studies). Dr. Susan Bartlett is a member of the OMERACT (Outcome Measures in
Rheumatology) Steering-Committee-on-RA-Flare Group, an international multidisciplinary panel of clinicians, patient research partners, bio-statisticians, epidemiologists, psychologists, and qualitative and quantitative researchers. Dr. Sasha Bernatsky is part of the Ontario Biologics Research Initiative, a province-wide endeavor funded by CIHR and the Ontario Ministry of Health to study and optimize biologic drug use in RA. In regard to the scleroderma program, Regional McGill Network referrals and the National Scleroderma Registry are successfully fueling clinical and basic research in scleroderma conducted by the Canadian Scleroderma Research Group (Dr.
Murray Baron, Director). Nail-fold videocapillaroscopy is being implanted at JGH. A joint cardio-rheumatology clinic is held monthly for scleroderma patients with lung disease and/or pulmonary hypertension. Scleroderma
Patient-Centered Intervention Network (SPIN) is an emerging team comprised of more than 40 leading researchers, clinicians and patient representatives from Canada, the United States, and Europe with extensive experience in scleroderma, including psychosocial issues and clinical epidemiology, health services research, policy, economics, and technology assessment including delivery of patient-centered health care services. In July
2011, SPIN brought together patients, clinicians and researchers from Canada, USA and Europe to develop the
CIHR NET grant application which was awarded in Jan 2012. In regard the systemic lupus erythematosus and vasculitides progam, the McGill Lupus and Vasculitis Clinic (Drs. Christian Pineau and Ann Clarke, co-Directors) is a multi-specialty model of care offering a unique patient-centered approach. It involves rheumatologists (Drs.
Christian Pineau, Evelyne Vinet and Sasha Bernatsky), immunologists (Drs. Ann Clarke and Emil Nashi), a nephrologist (Dr. Murray Vasilevsky), a respirologist (Dr. Neil Colman), an internist interested in metabolic bone disease (Dr. Suzanne Morin), a hematologist (Dr. Susan Solymoss), a neurologist (Dr. Martin Veilleux) and a dermatologist (Dr. Elizabeth O’Brien). The Program is well funded (CAN, CIHR, FRSQ and Pharma), well published, with many ongoing national and international collaborations. MD-PhD Dr. Emil Nashi was recruited in
2010 in Allergy-Clinical Immunology and has become an associate member in Rheumatology. With Dr. Joyce
Rauch, he will contribute basic science support to forthcoming SLE research initiatives. Drs. Ann Clarke, Sasha
Bernatsky and Christian Pineau are working with Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC), a global research network for investigators assessing outcomes in SLE. As for the transition clinic, the Young Adults
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Rheumatic Disease (YARD) clinic is growing steadily (Dr. Elizabeth Hazel, Director). A relationship with the
Constance Lethbridge Rehabilitation Center has been established to offer a complementary multidisciplinary program including OT/PT/Social worker, specifically for YARD patients. A CAN funded collaborative project prepared in cooperation with pediatric rheumatologists at U of Toronto, UBC, Dalhousie U and McGill (MCH) is ongoing. The project is to develop a questionnaire for youth with rheumatic disease: RACER - Readiness for
Adult Care in Rheumatology. Dr. Hazel is the adult rheumatologist co-PI for the group. A pilot validation of
RACER is to start at the MUHC-MCH and MGH. Dr. Henri Ménard collaborates with the McGill School of
Rehabilitation for low back pain research (LBP) research. The M&M test is a new clinical test for the evaluation of
LBP to be used by primary care providers. Extended validation of the test in the MUHC-MGH Spine Clinic is planned in 2012. Hemochromatosis arthritis is studied by Drs. Pantelis Panopalis, Henri Ménard and John
DiBattista (MUHC-RVH), J Antoniou (Orthop. Surgery-JGH), Dr. Michael Sebag (Hematology-MUHC-RVH), Dr.
Brian Gilfix (Genetics-MUHC) and a colleague from Orthopedic Surgery at the JGH. Frequent minor mutations
(1/300) even if without biochemical expression in serum iron abnormalities, will be explored as possible risk factors for the common variety of osteoarthritis seen in the general population. Pulmonary complications in
SARDs will be studied by Drs. Sasha Bernatsky, Christian Pineau, Ann Clarke, Marie Hudson and Murray Baron with support from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation.
The McGill Rheumatology Division provides clinical care in the outpatient, inpatient and emergency areas of all major teaching hospitals of the McGill network. To increase expertise and quality of care, specialized clinics are favoured. Osteoporosis and bone disease clinics are run in all hospitals (MUHC-RVH, The Bone Center, MUHC-
MGH and JGH) in collaboration with endocrinology, nephrology and internal medicine. Scleroderma clinics are held regularly at JGH with cardiology. Systemic Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases (SARD) like SLE, SS and vasculitides clinics are held at MUHC-MGH with neurology, nephrology, dermatology, internal medicine, respiratory medicine, and hematology. RA clinics are held once a week at MUHC-RVH with psychologist and nurse practitioner and a corridor of service to CLRC. YARD transition clinics are held once-a-week at MUHC-
MGH with a corridor of service to CLRC. Pain clinics are held weekly in conjunction with the Pain Center at
MUHC-MGH with anesthetist, physiatrist, psychologist, OT/PT and social worker. Corridors of service are in place with the Constance Lethbridge Rehabilitation Center for out-patient care and with the Jewish Rehabilitation
Center for in-patient care.
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In relationship to communities outside the institution, it is planned to develop international involvement in East
Africa (Nairobi U and Eldoret U in Kenya) as part of a global health mission. The possibility of sending the residents and staffs in teaching, patient care and point of service research missions to help the rheumatology program that the Division newly established this year is being explored.
Dr. Susan Bartlett is a workshop co-organizer/presenter on “Behave Yourself! Practical Application of Cognitive
Behavioral Theories to Motivate Change in Patients with Arthritis” at the ACR Chicago 2011 Annual Scientific meeting. Dr. Marie Hudson received the 2011 Young Investigator Award of the Canadian Rheumatology
Association (CRA) during the 2011 Joint Scientific Meeting of the CRA and the Mexican College of
Rheumatology. Dr. Henri Ménard received the highest award for a non-Argentinean National when elected
Foreign Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Medicine of Argentina. He was recognized for his original contributions to autoantigens and autoantibodies in rheumatoid arthritis. Dr. John DiBattista became
Editor-in-Chief of the biomedical journal “Inflammation Research”, The Official Journal of The International
Association of Inflammation Societies and The European Histamine Research Society. He was a member of the
International Organizing Committee of the 10th World Congress on Inflammation, Paris, France, 2011.
Postgraduate Training
The core training program is led by Dr. Thomas Maniatis, assisted by Dr. Patrizia Zanelli at the MGH, Dr. Josée
Verdon at the RVH and Dr. Ruxandra Bunea at the JGH, for a total of 110 residents for the July 1, 2011 to June
30, 2012 academic year.
The McGill Internal Medicine Residency Training Program continues its leadership position in Canada with respect to the adoption of resident work hour limits across its program. In light of the mandated environment coming to all training programs across Quebec with the new FMRQ collective agreement on July 1, 2012, the training program has been busy coming up with model systems to cover all inpatient units in the Department of
Medicine. These systems are planned to be piloted in early 2012, ahead of the July 1, 2012 deadline imposed by the FMRQ collective agreement.
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The training program continues to expand its use of Simulation-based training. In addition to previous initiatives in this domain, the Training Program has implemented training in the use of point-of-care ultrasound for procedures.
This is in conjunction with the purchase of point-of-care ultrasound machines for each of the hospitals across
McGill's core teaching network.
During the Canada Resident Matching Service (CaRMS) match for positions starting July 1, 2011, the Training
Program attracted trainees from all across Canada and outside of North America as well. All of the allotted entry- level positions for Internal Medicine at McGill were filled following the second iteration of CaRMS.
Undergraduate Education
The Department is heavily engaged in the teaching and training of medical students. Dr. Jeff Wiseman is responsible for the coordination and leadership of undergraduate education within the Department.
Professional Skills
As in previous years, all McGill sites participated in training the entire 2nd year medical school class of 180 students in Professional Skills, the one-month long basic physical examination skills course, in January. Under the steady and practical guidance of Dr. David Shannon this course again received uniformly enthusiastic reviews from students. The simulation centre-based OSCE developed by Dr. Shannon and Linda Crelinsten over the last two years greatly streamlined student summative evaluations.
Introduction to Internal Medicine (IIM)
The IIM course suffered from the MUNACA strike in that detailed planning that should have started in early
September 2011 had to be completed in a nail-biting rush in early December. Over the last year, 173 second-year medical students completed the IIM course at all McGill clinical training sites. The main educational value of this course is to help students develop the basics of clinical reasoning and approaches to internal medicine. Students’ performance on the final written examination has been modestly worse than in previous years – the average score of two of the three cohorts this year so far has been 71.5% as compared to the historical average over the last years of 74%. The Committee is monitoring this situation.
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There appears to be a need to create “How to Teach Clinical Reasoning” Faculty Development workshops for IIM tutors. In the coming years we need to make much more use of our videoconferencing capabilities so that expert physicians can interactively teach IIM students across all sites, particularly how to think and learn using patient problem lists, an essential skill needed for survival as a clinical clerk. Since the performance of our graduating class on the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) written exam is still relatively weak on the key features component, explicit teaching about key features and their role in diagnosis and management should be introduced during this course. There already exists robust online software called “Bioworld” created at the McGill
Faculty of Education that supports the creation of virtual Key Feature cases for students to solve and to compare their solutions and thinking to those of experts. This would be a promising pilot to try out for next year’s IIM course.
Clinical Clerkship in Internal Medicine
The clerkship this year started off under extremely difficult circumstances – the Quebec Residents’ work action and the MUNACA strike. Dedication of the staff maintained the highest possible quality of clinical teaching at our sites during these events. We are now on an even keel to finish off this year, tracking our accreditation standards in one45. Students reporting that they received mid-rotation feedback: 97%, workload was adequate: 86%, learning facilities were adequate: 97%, mistreatment during their clerkship: 2%. During this last year 180 clinical clerks trained in Internal Medicine at all McGill sites, including three clerks at the Gatineau site.
In the future, there is a need to create regular yearly Faculty Development teaching workshops for McGill
Attending Physicians. Dr. Wiseman has proposed that OSTE (Objective Structured Teaching Exam) could be established using IIM students as “Standardized Students” and which would simultaneously develop Attending
Staffs’ teaching skills and prepare IIM students for the rigors of future clerkship. Interactive videoconferencing for various lectures would make the best use of our limited resources and ensure that all students get not only taught uniform general objectives but also are taught in a similar general manner across all sites. These lectures can be recorded for future playback by students who miss a lecture and by teachers who wish to learn how to give a good interactive video-conferenced learning experience. Finally, with the cutbacks in clerks’ on call hours, McGill should create a Critical Care Course for medical students to teach the recognition and initial stabilization of the
“sick” acute care internal medicine patient. Dr. Jeff Wiseman is planning to pilot such a course.
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Internal Medicine Directorship and UGME Committee
Dr. Devi Banerjee has become MGH Site Clerkship Director and Dr. Peter Ghali RVH Site IIM and Clerkship
Director. The student members of the UGME Committee, Laura Pilozzi-Edwards and Lisa Dubrofsky were wonderful sources of constructive feedback and creative ideas. Laura Pilozzi-Edwards is leaving our Committee to pursue her training as an R1 in internal medicine at the MUHC. Additional administrative support will be required to develop and deploy some of the future proposed developments for the IIM and clerkship. As the number of clerks training at the Gatineau site increase, integration of the coordinator at that site will be required.
The Department is very grateful to Dr. Jeff Wiseman for his substantial contributions to the success of this program.
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Departmental Successes 2011 Salary Awards
CIHR New Investigator Dr. Maziar Divangahi Dr. Robert Sladek
FRSQ Chercheur Boursier -Junior 2 Dr. Stéphanie Chevalier Dr. Maya Saleh Dr. Maida Sewitch Dr. Robert Sladek
FRSQ Chercheur Boursier - Junior 1 Dr. Maziar Divangahi
FRSQ Chercheur Boursier Clinicien - Junior 2 Dr. Bruno Gagnon Dr. Chantal Séguin Dr. Marc Tischkowitz
FRSQ Chercheur Boursier Clinicien - Junior 1 Dr. Anne Gonzalez Dr. Nathalie Johnson Dr. Suzanne Morin
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Concluding comments
This year has seen significant changes in the Department of Medicine. Our former Chair and Chief has moved on to greater things. Two physicians have taken on the work that he did alone. We continue to work in the spirit of an integrated Department of Medicine across all the McGill hospital sites. It is always a challenge to bring diverse communities together with common purpose. However there is increasing interaction across sites. Divisional leaders with energy, vision and dedication are required to unify divisions. Promoting academic activities to busy and harried clinicians, unremunerated in the case of contract academic staff (CAS), is an ongoing challenge. For the first time we performed a systematic evaluation of the contract academic staff. The exercise was viewed very positively overall and led to a great deal of reflection as to career paths and to the job descriptions which have been developed in parallel. The many contributions of CAS to the University emerged from this review. The commitment to the academic mission was evident in the expectations reflected in the job descriptions prepared by divisions of the Department. The challenge will be to establish appropriate remuneration schemes to compensate
CAS for their contributions to research and teaching, if the proposed norms are to be met. A radical re-thinking of practice plans and additional institutional support are required to allow the proposed expanded contributions of the CAS. The tradition of providing three years of support for research to new recruits will require re-evaluation.
The harsh funding environment and the domino effect created by lack of operating funds for salary support awards will result in fewer successes among the faculty members engaging in research. There is an increased tendency to fast track to a faculty position, fulfilling requirements for a faculty position through formation complémentaire, and, the pursuit of master’s level training in clinical epidemiology, does not prepare new recruits for independent careers in research. Longer term support with appropriate evaluation procedures will be required to mentor the new generation of clinical researchers. Innovative internal and external funding schemes will need to be sought in support of the research mission, which is under threat. Maintaining research faculty with few dollars will be pre-occupation over the coming years. The re-orientation of research priorities will lead to deviation of funding to relatively few researchers within the current community. Accommodating to these re-definitions of priorities will force re-adjustments but will also lead to alienation of career scientists. Hopefully there will be mechanisms available to the Department to weather these future storms.
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APPENDIX I - HONOURS, AWARDS AND PRIZES (2011)
Cardiology
James Brophy was elected to the Board of Directors of the newly created Institut national d’excellence en santé et en services sociaux (INESS). He was also elected as a Member of the McGill Senate.
Jacques Genest has been inducted as Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. He has also been awarded the 2010 inaugural Margolese National Heart Disorders Prize by the UBC Faculty of Medicine. He was also reappointed to the McGill-Novartis Chair in Medicine for another 5 year term.
Richard I. Levin has been inducted as Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
Ariane Marelli is the 2011 recipient of the Heart Heroes Award by the Adult Congenital Heart Association.
Maurice McGregor has been named Officer of the Order of Canada.
Mathieu Walker is the recipient of the Osler Award.
Clinical Epidemiology
Theresa Gyorkos received the Canadian Public Health Association’s 2011 International Award.
Nitika Pant Pai & Madhukar Pai were presented with the 2011 Canadian Rising Stars in Global Health Award by Grand Challenges Canada in June 2011.
Robyn Tamblyn has been appointed Scientific Director of CIHR’s Institute of Health Services and Policy Research.
Clinical Immunology and Allergy
Phil Gold earned the McGill 2011 Medicine Alumni Global (MAG) Lifetime Achievement Award.
Mark Wainberg has been elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also received an Honorary Doctorate from University of Montreal.
Critical Care
Maya Saleh is the laureate of the 2011 inaugural Maude Abbott Prize established by the Faculty of Medicine. She is also the recipient of the Prix André Dupont from the Club de Recherches Cliniques du Québec.
Dermatology
Linda Moreau received the Canadian Dermatology Association Residents’ Award for Best Teacher of the Year.
Endocrinology
Sylvia Cruess has been named Officer of the Order of Canada.
Laurent Lecanu is among Québec Science Magazine’s top ten discoveries of 2011.
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David Morris is the recipient of the 2010-2011 Department of Medicine Outreach Award.
Vassilios Papadopoulos has been inducted as Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. He is also among Québec Science Magazine’s top ten discoveries of 2011.
Robert Sladek is the 2011 recipient of the Joe Doupe Young Investigator Award by the Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation.
Gastroenterology
George Ghattas and the RVH Endoscopy Unit received the CAG Quality Endoscopy Award.
Josée Parent became the President of the Association of gastroenterologists of Québec.
General Internal Medicine
David Dawson received the 2010-2011 Douglas G. Kinnear Award for outstanding clinician-teacher from the MUHC Department of Medicine.
Michelle Elizov has been presented with the Faculty Honour for Educational Excellence Award.
Bert Govig has been named Fellow of the American College of Physicians in April 2011.
David Hornstein is the recipient of the 2010-2011 Department of Medicine Physician Award for Exemplary Physician.
Susan Kahn is the recipient of the 2011 Clinical Outcomes Research Award by the Venous Disease Coalition.
Thomas Maniatis has been named Fellow of the American College of Physicians in April 2011. He is also the recipient of the 2011 Program Director of the Year Award given by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
Lucy Opatrny has been elected to the Board of Directors of the FMSQ.
Louise Pilote received the 2011 George Fraser Award for excellence in clinical research in cardiology.
Ernesto Schiffrin is the recipient of the 2011 Excellence Award for Hypertension Research by the High Blood Council of the American Heart Association. He is also the President Elect of the International Society of Hypertension in 2011 and will assume its presidency in 2012. In addition, Dr. Schiffrin is the honoree for the 48th André Aisenstadt Memorial Clinic Day.
Linda Snell received the 2010-2011 W.H. Philip Hill Award for outstanding clinician-teacher from the MUHC Department of Medicine.
Patrick Willemot received the 2010-2011 Department of Medicine Award for Innovation in Clinical Care.
Jeffrey Wiseman has been named Fellow of the American College of Physicians in April 2011.
Geriatric Medicine
Howard Bergman is co-honorary President of the Société francophone d’oncogériatrie.
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Hematology
Patricia Pelletier received the Prix d’excellence from the Association d’anémie falciforme du Québec for her commitment to patients.
John Storring is the recipient of the Stewart Memorial Award.
Nephrology
The residents at the Jewish General Hospital voted Dr. Sharon Nessim as 2011 Teacher of the Year.
Andrey Cybulsky was reappointed to the Catherine McLaughlin Hakim Chair in Medicine for a second 5 year term.
Neurology
Alberto Aguayo has been inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in April 2011.
Brian Chen received a Sloan Research Fellowship.
Michael Rasminsky has been selected for the CAME 2011 Certificate of Merit.
Nutrition and Food Science Center
Errol Marliss has been named Fellow of the American Society for Nutrition.
Oncology
Gerald Batist has been inducted as Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
Respiratory
Margaret Becklake has been named Grande officière de l'Ordre national du Québec.
Qutayba Hamid is this year's Distinguished Lecturer in Respiratory Sciences by the CIHR's Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Medicine and the Canadian Thoracic Society.
Richard Menzies received the 2010-2011 Department of Medicine Staff Research Award.
J.A. Peter Paré received the distinguished Achievement Award from the American Thoracic Society.
Rheumatology
Marie Hudson received the 2011 Young Investigator Award of the Canadian Rheumatology Association.
Henri Ménard was elected “Foreign Corresponding Member of the Nacional Academia de Medicina de Argentina”.
Electronic Adobe PDF versions of this Appendix and this report are available at the following website link: https://www.mcgill.ca/deptmedicine/about-us/annual-reports/archives 42