Empathy all-important, award winners say
Harvey Max Chochinov [MD/83, PhD/98], an expert on dignity in health care and laureate of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame, was honoured by UM in September with the 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award for Academic Innovation.
Chochinov, distinguished professor of psychiatry at UM and senior scientist at CancerCare Manitoba, also gave the address to new medical students at Inaugural Day Exercises for the Max Rady College of Medicine.
“Strive to be more than human-body mechanics. Aspire to be healers,” Chochinov urged the future doctors. “Patients will not care what you know until they know that you care.”
Joss Reimer [MD/08, MPH/13], president of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), was recognized with the Distinguished Alumni Award for Professional Achievement.
Reimer, who led Manitoba’s COVID-19 vaccine taskforce, is an associate professor of community health sciences at UM and chief medical officer of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. She spoke to medical students and physicians at an event in February 2024.
“Our empathy is more important than our expertise,” she said. “As much as we need to know the facts and memorize a lot of details, the most important thing, [as] any patient will tell you … is the empathy that the physician shows.”
In September, Reimer delivered the CMA’s formal apology for past and ongoing harms to Indigenous Peoples in the health system.
View Chochinov’s address: https://bit.ly/40LrE8b
Read about the CMA apology: https://bit.ly/3Q5N1fy
Accomplished alum named dean of nursing
Kellie Thiessen [PhD/14] has been appointed dean of the College of Nursing.
Thiessen holds a master’s degree in nursing from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. She completed a PhD in applied health sciences at UM in 2014.
A registered nurse and registered midwife, Thiessen joined the College of Nursing faculty in 2014. She led the development of the college’s midwifery program and was its director from 2015 to 2023.
Thiessen has served as a researcher with the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba and as a senior specialist in maternal health and midwifery for UM’s Institute for Global Public Health. She recently led the expansion of the midwifery program at the University of British Columbia.
Dr. Netha Dyck [BN/88] has retired from UM after leading the College of Nursing as dean since 2018.
New research chair to advance telerehab
Ruth Barclay [BMRPT/87, PhD/08], professor of physical therapy, has been named the inaugural Research Chair in Telerehabilitation at Winnipeg’s Riverview Health Centre.
The College of Rehabilitation Sciences and Riverview announced the jointly funded chair in September.
Telerehabilitation uses technologies such as videoconferencing to deliver services from a distance. Barclay will lead a research program with a strong emphasis on new technologies.
“A lot of clinics and research studies turned to telerehab during COVID and afterwards, focusing on … inclusion of people living in a variety of locations or those who maybe aren’t comfortable coming to an in-person setting,” said Barclay.
Kathleen Klaasen, CEO of Riverview, said the research chair will help to demonstrate the value of telerehab.
“[It] improves access to care in rural and remote communities, but we need the research and evidence to support that,” she said.