Media Highlights
Across the country – and around the world – Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry experts made headlines, breaking new ground in health research and providing critical insight on the most pressing health issues of the day.
Face of hope
Clinical Fellow Dr. Ivanka Nebor can’t fix the emotional scars left on those damaged by Ukraine’s war with Russia. But together with her colleagues, she took her surgical skills to patients in Ukraine requiring complex head, neck and facial reconstruction – making a real difference in lives, as shown on CTV and many other news outlets.
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From Earth to Space
What rules and laws govern Space? Are licensed doctors on Earth able to transfer their skills into Space? In a thought-provoking piece picked up by national and international media, a team of researchers, including Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry’s Dr. Adam Sirek and Alex Zhou, a third-year medical student, proposed changes to the medical licensing framework to allow for medical care in Space.
Pandemic pandemonium
Dr. Sameer Elsayed continued to make headlines as a world-leading expert on infectious diseases, providing critical insight into COVID-19, vaccines and monkeypox for dozens of media outlets in Canada and beyond. His thoughtful editorials and much-needed context on these emerging health threats led him to become one of Western University’s most widely quoted faculty members over the past year.
Post-COVID smell problems?
Dr. Leigh Sowerby, associate professor in the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, made headlines for his work examining parosmia, a well known, post-COVID disorder that distorts a person’s sense of smell so scents once found pleasant – like coffee, chocolate or perfume – smell foul instead.
Hungry for care
Kelly Anderson, PhD, a researcher at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry, found children in food-insecure households relied more on the health-care system to cope with mental health and substance use disorders than their peers – a study that received extensive media coverage across the country.
Wildfires
As wildfires raged across Canada, Schulich Medicine & Dentistry experts helped national and international media outlets understand the health context from a variety of angles. Associate Professor Nicole Redvers, PhD, was widely quoted on how Indigenous communities have been disproportionally impacted by wildfires in Canada, while Associate Professor Dr. Anna Gunz provided expert insight on the health impacts of wildfire smoke.
Improving access to care
As COVID-19 exposed our health-care system to severe workforce shortages and a massive backlog of patients waiting to be seen, more than six-million Canadians were reported to be without family doctors this year. But – as Dean Dr. John Yoo and Western University President Alan Shepard wrote in a joint editorial carried in newspapers across Canada – medical schools can help address many of our current and future health resource challenges through decentralized medical training.
