Residency Program News and Updates

The admin team, (Karen and myself), are still working remotely, but are very much looking forward to getting back to the office, for a few days a week, in the Fall. I will let everyone know once this has been confirmed. Even though we are working remotely, Karen and I do meet on Zoom just about every day, and manage to go for coffee quite often. We’ve found some really nice patios around the city.

One Sunday late July, Geoff and I decided to invite Karen & her hubby Corné to join us on a hike. They are quite new to Vancouver, and haven’t been able to do much exploring since arriving last year, so we wanted to show them a little of the mountains and views from the North shore. We decided that the Eagle Bluffs hike, which starts from the Cypress ski area would be perfect. We all enjoyed a great hike, and a fun day out even if the views were a little obscured by smoke from wild fires! (Pic of Shelley & Karen).

Grads 2021

Once again we couldn’t have our usual grad dinner to celebrate our 10 grads, but that didn’t stop us celebrating the grads’ achievements.

Anatomical pathology and Neuropathology joined forces to have a joint grad ceremony in the Taylor Fidler at VGH. Our grads were in person to receive their certificates from the program directors, Dr Brian Skinnider (AP), and Dr Ian Mackenzie (NP). Guests zoomed in to enjoy the event & delicious dessert boxes from The Lazy Gourmet were enjoyed by everyone at VGH. A big thank you to our AP resident, Ariel Liu for making sure all went smoothly from an IT perspective during the event and taking the photos!

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR GRADS!

AP
BASILE TESSIER-CLOUTIER Gynecological Pathology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering
AP
Kyra Berg - GI & Liver fellowship at Stanford
AP
Mike Steel - GI & Liver fellowship, University of Toronto
AP
Raymond Yip - GI & Liver fellowship at University of California
AP
Sammy Au - GU fellowship at Indiana University

Medical Microbiology managed to have a small dinner for the residents down at Tap and Barrel in Olympic village, where grad, Lynne Li was presented with her certificate by Dr Chris Lowe (PD for MedMicro). Hematopathology had a very nice zoom event, where grads, Eric, Muntadhar and Bhu stayed on afterwards to enjoy a dinner together. We also had three fellows who completed their fellowships, and were presented certificates by the fellowship supervisors.

MM
Lynne Li - Staff at BCCH
HP
Eric McGinnis - Staff at VGH
HP
Muntadhar Al Mossawi - Coag Fellowship with Dr Tyler Smith, VGH
HP
Bhu Johal - staff at Kelowna General Hospital
NP
Adrian Levine - CIP fellowship researching pediatric brain tumours with Dr Cynthia Hawkins, Hospital for Sick Kids, Toronto
Clinical Fellow
Dr. Nissreen Mohammad - completed her second fellowship with us in Gyne pathology with supervisors Dr Lien Hoang & Dr Blake Gilks
Clinical Fellow
Dr. Joseph Matthew - completed his Dermpath fellowship with Dr. Richard Crawford
Clinical Fellow
Dr. Shadi Al-Ahmadi - will be completing his GI fellowship with Dr David Schaeffer on Oct 31 and then is doing a second fellowship in Breast Pathology with Dr Nick Myles (SPH)
Congratulations
Resident Teaching Award: Dr. Linda Hoang (Medical Microbiology) - The Dr. Melvyn Bernstein Resident Teaching Award
Congratulations
Resident Teaching Award: Dr. Lien Hoang (Anatomical Pathology) - The Dr. Roberta Miller Resident Teaching Award

Program Director Updates:

We said goodbye and thank you to Dr Sophia Park (Medical Biochemistry) program director on June 30th & Sophia was presented with her Program Director award by Dr Mike Nimmo at the MedBio RPC meeting in June. Welcome to Dr Andre Mattman who is the new PD for MedBio from July 1, 2021.

Welcome to Our New Residents

In July, we welcomed all our new residents to the programs, and are also very excited to have two Transfusion Medicine AFC trainees joining us as well, Laura Tapley and Isabelle Blais-Normandin. TM will be going through a Royal College Review early next year now that we have trainees in the program, so Dr. Andrew Shih and I are very busy getting everything together for that.

Reed Huber
Anatomical Pathology
Allen Zhang
Anatomical Pathology
Tami Lin
Anatomical Pathology
Calvin Lo
MEDICAL MICROBIOLOGY
Lu Yang (will have a delayed start due to mat leave)
NEUROPATHOLOGY
Jenny Wang
Hematopathology
Laura Tapley, AFC Fellow, Transfusion Medicine
Isabelle Blais-Normandin, AFC Fellow, Transfusion Medicine

Welcome to everyone, and good luck as you start on the journey to become pathologists.

New Fellows

We also had a few fellows joined us. It was extra challenging for our fellows coming from overseas with the isolation requirements once they arrived, but everyone managed to survive that and start on time:
Welcome to:
Dr. Sultan Alawfi – IPAC fellowship - MM
Dr. Mohammed Abalkhail: AMS fellowship – MM
Dr. Muntadhar AlMoosawi (HP grad) started a flow cytometry fellowship with Tyler Smith (HP)

And we look forward to welcoming the following fellows later on this year:
Dr. Elham Yousefi (Bone & Soft Tissue) in Sept, supervisor Dr Torsten Nielsen, and
Dr. Amal Algarni (Liver and GI) in December, supervisor Dr David Schaeffer.

Babies, babies and more babies…

Feb 22, 2021

Theodore (Teddy)

Eric McGinnis and his wife Alanna welcomed baby Theodore (Teddy) Mcginnis on Feb 22, 2021. 7lbs.
March 24, 2021

Ava Claire

Kevin Shopsowitz and his wife Catherine welcomed baby Ava Claire on March 24, 2021. 7lbs 8oz
June 24, 2021

Ailbhe Mai

Conor Broderick and his wife Hannah welcomed baby Ailbhe Mai, born on June 24 weighing 7lbs7oz.
Jun 19, 2021

Théodore

Recent grad, Basile Tessier-Cloutier and his wife Vivian welcomed Baby Théodore on June 19, 2021. 7lbs.
July 23, 2021

Aiden

And Raymond Yip and his wife Katherine welcomed baby Aiden on July 23, 2021, just under 7lbs