In the Spotlight

A student in NOSM’s new Master of Medical Studies program works to improve pain management for Northern trauma patients transported by air

Unfortunately, it’s a recurring story in the North. Serious accidents happen causing trauma, and the air ambulance is called to transport patients to hospital. For Dr. Sabrina Slade, most critical is the extreme pain many patients must endure during lengthier air transport—an experience she hopes to improve. Dr. Slade is a second-year orthopedic surgery resident at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) and a graduate of the MD Class of 2019 at Queen’s University. She currently works part-time in the emergency department at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre. She’s one year into the Master of Medical Studies (...

Where are they now? Charter Class Alumna thrives in rural Francophone practice

Reflecting back, Dr. Lyndsay Berardi says her mother’s experience with breast cancer ignited her ambition to become a family physician. At the time, Lyndsay was a Francophone teenager in Kirkland Lake. Her mother’s diagnosis marked the beginning of many trips to Sudbury for cancer treatment, and for Lyndsay, it would chart the course of her career in medicine. “Even though I was relatively young, I was acutely aware of some of the inequities in accessing health care; having to drive three-and-a-half hours to go to Sudbury for my mother’s oncology appointments and there were times when I wouldn’t see her for six weeks becaus...

Putting social accountability into everyday practice

Dr. Ella Goodman, graduate of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine’s (NOSM) Charter Class of 2011, constantly puts social accountability into practice. For the past nine years she’s provided care to highly vulnerable populations at the Norwest Community Health Centre in the south-east area of Thunder Bay. “We have a large number of low-income families, unattached patients without family doctors, a large Syrian refugee community, a large urban-Indigenous population and a lot of underserved people in general. We're always working to better understand everyone’s needs, to better provide health care and access to the health ser...