It is a truth universally acknowledged that good research needs a lot of time and resources. For clinicians working full time in small communities, doing everything required for research is almost impossible.
This is where Dr. Lisa Allen comes in. Dr. Allen, who holds a BSc and PhD in Biomolecular Science, is the research coordinator for the Huntsville, Bracebridge and Parry Sound Local Education Groups (LEG)—a position she has held for about 10 years.
She works with a variety of clinicians including family doctors, surgeons, internists, anesthesiologists, physiatrists and more. Dr. Allen does the complex but important work, which enables the clinicians to focus more time on their research.
“All the clinicians I work with have a full-time commitment,” she said. “I’m able to facilitate collecting documentation, project management, and help with collecting data so they can focus on the research.”
The three LEGs work on multiple research projects. Projects in Parry Sound include a lifestyle medicine intervention program that is branching out to other communities across the country, a project on culturally sensitive end of life care, and a frostbite project that was presented at the Canadian Burn Association and will be presented to the American Burn Association in 2025.
In Huntsville, clinicians are looking at an exercise program for cancer survivors that has been running for about five years, a direct oral penicillin allergy study, a clinic that provides continuing care to people without a permanent family physician, and a women’s health clinic.
Projects in Bracebridge include studies looking at Labour Dystocia, how Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) regulations are changing with electronic medical records, and ways to improve in-hospital care for patients with delirium along with rural communities’ services.
Dr. Allen says more physicians have expressed interest in conducting research over the past five years, including family doctors, surgeons, internists, anesthesiologists, physiatrists, and more. The program has grown from one to more than 40 researchers, all NOSM University faculty members currently working on different projects. Because of the support Dr. Allen provides, clinicians are less daunted about the prospect of taking on research in addition to their full-time clinical work.
“I think the biggest success now is that people are seeing that they can be involved in this without negatively impacting their work life balance,” she said.
Clinicians Perspective
Drs. Hector Roldan, Timothy Lapp and Roy Kirkpatrick are physicians in Huntsville who have worked with the LEGs and Dr. Allen on multiple research projects.
Dr. Kirkpatrick, a general surgeon in Huntsville for more than 30 years and the Chair of Surgery at NOSM University, says that without the LEGs and Dr. Allen’s work, completing research would not be possible.
“It has made it accessible for ordinary doctors to do this kind of work,” he said. With the support of Dr. Allen and other LEG staff and administration, an expanding number of doctors can participate in research.
“The research capacity at Huntsville was virtually nil. Not that there wasn’t any interest, but it was not feasible to have a full-time job in a rural community and do meaningful research,” explained Dr. Lapp, a Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Specialist.
“With the advent of the LEG, we’ve secured more than $1.5 million in grants to date. People who didn’t see themselves as researchers—or did not imagine a research career for themselves in Huntsville—now have that option,” Dr. Lapp added.
The success of the LEGs has also provided opportunities for university students to gain research experience, as they are able to participate in data collection through a summer-work program. Many of the students have gone on to medical school or continue careers in medicine.
With the advent of the LEGs, more NOSM University clinical faculty participating in research also provides a good example for medical learners, said Dr. Kirkpatrick. It demonstrates that being a clinician researcher is possible.
“It is valuable for our learners to see us taking an interest in research, to see that it is possible, and to see that the engagement in research is important to develop skills and critical thinking,” Dr. Kirkpatrick said.
All doctors agree that doing research while working as a full-time physician provides immense value to their profession.
Dr. Roldan, a General Surgeon, is the Research Coordinator for General Surgery at NOSM University. He has worked on four funded research projects in Huntsville since 2015 and says research provides an opportunity to learn new things about his area of practice and provides a change to the routine of living in a smaller community.
“Research is very important for clinicians because you get in-depth knowledge of the subject of study. The learning opportunity is amazing,” Dr. Roldan said.
“It gives you a variety of things to do in your practice, particularly for rural physicians. I like the little bit of challenge it brings to my practice,” he added.
In addition, Dr. Lapp says clinicians participating in research benefits smaller communities because it gives them an opportunity to validate research that has been done elsewhere.
“A lot of the evidence has come from large urban settings that don’t resemble the kind of care that we provide here,” Dr. Lapp said. “If we, in a smaller community, can measure our effectiveness against what large urban settings and larger academic settings are telling us we should be doing, there’s value in that.”
The success of the Huntsville, Parry Sound and Bracebridge LEGs has created a culture of research in the three communities which the clinician researchers hope to build on for years to come.
In the coming year, Dr. Allen says that the LEGs are looking forward to working more with the communities, improving patient care and efficiency, and getting people more aware of the research that is happening.
“The future is bright,” said Dr. Kirkpatrick.
