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Save the date: NHRC 2018

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The next Northern Health Research Conference is being held in Kenora, Ontario on September 21-22, 2018.

The Northern Ontario School of Medicine’s Northern Health Research Conference—more commonly known as the NHRC—has been held annually since 2006. It is hosted in communities across NOSM’s wider campus of Northern Ontario and provides an opportunity for researchers in the region to present their research and exchange research ideas.

This conference demonstrates NOSM’s commitment to research, health care, and education to the people of Northern Ontario and beyond. The NHRC explores research activities arising from community-based activities and highlights projects underway from students, residents, and community-based researchers. The conference provides opportunities for collaboration and networking.

CALL FOR POSTER ABSTRACTS – NOW OPEN

The general call for Abstract submissions is closed.  We are now accepting Abstract submissions for Poster Presentations at the 2018 conference.  Please carefully read the Call for Abstracts document before completing the submission form.

The deadline to submit abstract submissions for poster presentations is August 3, 2018.

For more information, visit the NHRC 2018 conference webpage. Information about past NHRC conferences is also available.

 

In the Spotlight, Spotlight on Research

Research: Essential to Improving Health

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In keeping with NOSM’s mission to improve the supply of physicians in Northern Ontario, the School partnered with the North West Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), the North East LHIN and HealthForceOntario (HFO) Marketing and Recruitment Agency to host Summit North: Building a Flourishing Physician Workforce. 

The Summit was held on January 24, 2018 in Thunder Bay and had over 130 people who took part including representatives from Indigenous communities, Francophone communities, hospitals/health services, family health teams, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, the Ontario Medical Association and local government. Drawing on experience in other jurisdictions and on intensive group discussions, Summit North developed short and long-term solutions to build a sustainable physician workforce. Subsequently, the Northern Physician Resource Task Force has developed an Action Plan based on Summit North’s solutions.

Summit North’s title drew on the work of Dr. Denis Lennox who retired recently from Queensland Health in Australia. Over the past few weeks (May 21 – June 7), Dr. Lennox visited seven communities in Northern Ontario as the first stage in a projected Knowledge Transfer through which Northern Ontario will develop our own Service and Workforce Design team(s), similar to Queensland. Service and Workforce Design teams assist struggling communities in redesigning their service models to address population health needs and to recruit physicians, enhanced by active community participation. The model also includes a rural generalist pathway which, if implemented in Ontario, would feature a NOSM (PGY3) enhanced skills in rural generalism with a goal of creating a stable physician “pipeline”. NOSM is excited to be sponsoring this initiative and working with the Task Force to ensure high quality, reliable healthcare in remote rural Northern Ontario communities.

Alumni Stories, Indigenous Stories

“If you’re willing to work for it, you can do anything.”

Gallery

Source: Northern Ontario Medical Journal | 2018/03/22 Written by: Nadine Robinson

“Becoming a doctor can be a sacrifice, but sacrifice pays off. It has opened up so many doors for me to pursue other passions of mine, such as travel. If you’re willing to work for it, you can do anything.”

Photo of Dr. Becky Neckoway in a doctor's office with a stethescope around her neck.If you ask Dr. Rebekah (Becky) Neckoway what the hardest part of medical school was, it was deciding to apply: “I battled negative thoughts, wondering ‘Am I good enough? Can I do this?’ And even once I got in, I had to overcome those feelings. I did this by showing up, and doing the work. I know firsthand that self-doubt has the power to kill a dream faster than failure will.”

Each passing year and clinical rotation helped confirm that she was good enough, and Dr. Neckoway now practices rural family medicine in Sioux Lookout, spending one week a month in a remote First Nation community.

Hailing from Thunder Bay, Dr. Neckoway enjoys the interesting and challenging work of caring for patients, and she hopes to be a role model and affect the lives of First Nations’ youth. This goal was crystallized for her while she was a resident, training in her mother’s home community of Eabametoong First Nation. She remembers charting in the office and seeing a young boy staring at her from the doorway: “When I turned to say ‘Hi,’ his mom behind him said: ‘See, I told you your cousin is a doctor!’ He smiled and waved and they left. I was touched, and knew that I wanted to be caring for and hopefully inspiring people like him. After all, I didn’t know that being a doctor was a career path even open to me as a child. I’d only ever seen white doctors. So I started my career in nursing.”

Graduating with a Bachelors of Science in Nursing from Lakehead University in 2009, Neckoway wanted more. “I wanted to understand the patient’s illness completely and lead them through their health journey…but also I wanted to become a doctor to show the people who put me down that First Nations’ people can do anything. But I knew that bitterness and resentment wasn’t the answer. By learning to forgive the people who hurt me in the past I am able to focus my attention on what matters most to me: First Nations People.”

Dr. Neckoway’s parents instilled the importance of education in her. Her father of Fox Lake First Nation in Manitoba holds a PhD in Social Work and her mother has her Masters in Education. Yet both grew up in First Nation communities without electricity, living off the land, hauling water, trapping, fishing, and hunting. Her mother and father are residential school survivors.

“They supported me, in everything, helping me set my sights on goals and achieve them. They taught me that life is beautiful and it is what you make it… and that the only thing that stands in our way is our thoughts…and some hard work. They are the reason I am who I am today.”

Dr. Neckoway graduated from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine in 2013 and completed the Rural Family Medicine residency program at the University of Alberta’s Red Deer site in 2015.

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