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June 9 | 12:00 – 12:50PM CST 

You can register and submit your questions here.

With panelists, Dr. Blair Peters, Dr. Robert Obara & Jules Perez

Please join us for a panel discussion focused on Leadership & 2SLGBTQIA+ Health. Co-moderators Dr. Joss Reimer and Callum Barnes will lead a conversation with members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ Community who will speak from the roles of physician and medical learner. This panel discussion is a follow-up to Dr. Chronopolous’ session (view the recording here) and will build on the information in her talk.

Panelists are Dr. Blair Peters, one of the world’s first surgeons to complete a formal academic fellowship training in advanced gender-affirming surgery, Jules Perez, a medical learner who has held multiple EDI-related leadership positions, and Dr. Robert Obara, a family physician with a special interest in transgender health and passion for 2SLGBTQIA+ advocacy. 

At the time of registration, there is an opportunity to submit questions you would like the panel to address related to medical leadership at the individual and system level. Moderators will develop panelist questions based on themes that emerge from the submissions.

Moderator Bios:

Dr. Joss Reimer (she/​her) has been voted the next President-elect of the Canadian Medical Association, Dr. Joss Reimer is an expert in physician leadership and public health. Currently, Dr. Reimer is the Chief Medical Officer for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. Before taking on the role of CMO for Winnipeg, Dr. Reimer is best known as the Medical Lead and Official Spokesperson for Manitoba’s Provincial COVID-19 Vaccine Taskforce. Prior to the pandemic, Dr. Reimer worked as the Medical Director of Public Health for Winnipeg and she also developed and directed the 4‑year Population Health course still used today to train all future physicians studying at the University of Manitoba.

In addition to her public health and medical leadership roles, Dr. Reimer maintains a clinical practice in Women’s health where you might find her catching babies in the middle of the night. 

Callum Barnes (He/​They) is a queer medical student who is inspired to centre advocacy and activism in their developing medical career. Within the Max Rady College of Medicine, Callum has held various leadership roles such as being a member of the executive committees for the Surgery and 2SLGBTQIA+ Health Interest Groups, the Local Officer for Reproductive and Sexual Health Sr., a member of the 2SLGBTQIA+ EDI working group and nationally as the Manitoba representative on the Steering Committee for the Canadian Queer Medical Students Association (CQMSA). Prior to medicine, Callum worked in makeup and continues to express his creativity through the art form. They also are a proud parent to two cats.

Panelist Bios:

Dr. Blair Peters (he/​they) is a double fellowship-trained board certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon who specializes in gender-affirming surgery and peripheral nerve surgery. They completed their residency training in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the University of Manitoba, was one of the first surgeons in North America to complete an additional fellowship in comprehensive gender-affirming surgery at OHSU and is an Assistant Professor in both the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and the Department of Urology at Oregon Health & Science University.

He is a member of and a recognized advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community and frequently speaks on panels, creates educational materials, and advocates for policy change and the broader rights of all queer people. He strives to be a strong queer voice in medicine and surgery and focuses on shifting the culture of medicine and mentoring future generations of gender-affirming surgeons.

Jules Perez (they/​them) is a queer, nonbinary medical student with a background in psychology prior to medical school. Jules’ passion for social justice, advocacy and activism is informed by their lived experiences. They hold various leadership positions locally and in the Canadian Federation of Medical Students (CFMS), including 2SLGBTQIA+ EDI working group point person, founder of the Accessibility EDI working group, and Wellness Advocacy File Co-Lead, and were co-National Officer of Reproductive and Sexual Health (2021−2022). Outside of medicine, Jules enjoys spending time with their family and pets, and engaging in their creative hobbies.

Dr. Robert Obara (he/​him) completed his medical training at Trinity College Dublin and coming to Canada as an international medical graduate, Dr. Obara is now a full-scope family physician in Manitoba with a special interest in transgender health. He strives to provide comprehensive care and encourages general health and wellness among his patients.

With a passion for advocacy, he has worked on various initiatives related to women’s reproductive rights and health training, and on 2SLGBTQIA+ wellness and health promotion; he has also served on the Manitoba College of Family Physicians’ board. In his spare time, he enjoys playing volleyball.

March 20, 2023 | 6:30 PM — 8:00 PM CST

Dr. Sharda’s presentation explores the concept of bias and implicit bias. It challenges the notion that physicians are ​‘neutral’ and ​‘objective.’ She will provide definitions of bias, racism and colonialism and explain how power (personal and social) is needed to create and maintain systems of oppression. She will delineate systems vs interpersonal discrimination and how they feed into each other. Dr. Sharda will speak about intent vs impact (and harm) and provide examples from the healthcare context about how this harm can manifest to patients, physicians, and learners. She will introduce the ideas of privilege and oppression via the Coin Model of Privilege. Dr. Sharda’s presentation offers an approach for students, doctors and medical professionals to start their journey of learning and unlearning — drawing on the concepts of Miller’s Pyramid, narrative humility and critical allyship and provides guided opportunities to self-reflect on the concepts presented. A certificate of attendance will be provided to participants.

Learning Objectives:

• Define concepts of bias and discrimination including racism 
  
• Describe how bias and discrimination affect healthcare outcomes and physician wellness
  
• Describe the concepts of cultural humility and critical allyship as tools to combat discrimination

Dr. Saroo Sharda MBChB, MMEd, FRCPC is an anesthesiologist, medical educator, writer and trained creative writing coach. She identifies as a woman of colour of North Indian descent, who has the privilege of being cis-gender, straight, able-bodied and economically privileged.

She is an advocate for physician wellness, equity and anti-racism, and has written and spoken widely about these topics, including publications in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, British Medical Journal, The Globe and Mail and Today’s Parent.

Dr. Sharda is the Associate Dean of Equity and Inclusion for the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University and the inaugural Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Lead at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, where she works as a Medical Advisor.

When not writing or working she works hard to avoid stepping on lego pieces strewn around the house by her 5 year-old and 8 year-old sons.

Register now.

Dr. Chronopoulos’ talk focuses on how to make health spaces more queer-friendly. This involves an overview of terminology in the 2SLGBTQ+ community, as well as approaches to challenging our cisheteromonogamous norms that are the foundation of medical teaching. The session will provide ideas on changing language, documentation and health spaces to make them more inclusive. Finally, the session will speak to the medical care of the queer community, focusing on screening, monitoring, documentation and treatments.

Learning Objectives:

• To be able to practice in a way that is inclusive of folks of all genders and sexual orientations
• To do so fluidly, without awareness of someone’s gender or sexual identity
• To be able to take a history inclusive of gender and sexually diverse people
• To be able to perform appropriate physical exam adaptations for sexually and gender diverse folks
• To be able to adapt screening practices to sexually and gender diverse people
• To be aware of specialized medications and monitoring that may be used by sexually and gender diverse people

Having completed her Residency training in Family Medicine at the University of Calgary in 2008, Dr. Julia Chronopoulos settled at the Royal Alexandra Family Medicine Center in 2009, and subsequently the MacEwan University Health Center in 2018. She enjoys serving a diverse population, with a special interest in mental health, as well as sexual and gender diversity. She currently coordinates the Rainbow Health Clinic at MacEwan University Health Center where she additionally acts as the Medical Director.

Accessibility: Closed captioning available for virtual session. Contact us for any other accessibility needs.

May 23, 2023 | 6:30 PM — 8:00 PM CST

This session will introduce learners to the concept of ableism, that is disability prejudice and discrimination, as endemic to society as a whole, and to healthcare in particular. It will then introduce learners to Disability Ethics as an alternative to conventional bioethics in that it is a rights-based approach which aims to ensure that the perspectives of people with lived experience of disability are central to discussions and debates about ethical issues involving disability and people with disabilities. Given that the ever-expanding eligibility for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) in Canada is a current public and ethical debate that has huge ramifications for both physicians and people with disabilities, learners will be invited to use a disability ethics lens to analyze some recent cases in which people with disabilities who did not want to die were nonetheless compelled to end their lives via MAiD because they could not get adequate supports to live. Finally, this session will provide physicians with some practical Best Practices to help them implement a Disability Ethics approach in order to diagnose and treat ableism in their own clinical practice as well as in the broader healthcare system.

Learning Objectives:

• Define ableism
  
• Understand the interconnection between a deficit-based, biomedical view of disability and Medicine’s proneness to ableism.
  
• Identify fundamental differences between a conventional clinical ethics approach to treatment, and an approach that is informed by disability ethics.
  
• Critique conventional biomedical notions of Quality of Life using a disability ethics lens.
  
• Identify and implement Best Practices for de-ableizing their own clinical practice, and incorporating a disability-ethics based approach.
  

Speaker Bio: Heidi Janz, Ph.D. (She/​Her/​Hers) is a Core Faculty Member and Associate Adjunct Professor with the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre at the University of Alberta. Her areas of specialization include Disability Ethics, Critical Disability Studies, and Research-Based Drama. She is also an active disability-rights advocate at the national level. In her ​“other life,” she is a writer/​playwright and filmmaker. Her creative work focuses on making the experiences of people with disabilities accessible to audiences made up of both people with disabilities and people who are temporarily able-bodied. Heidi Janz also has cerebral palsy.

Register now.

Accessibility: Closed captioning available for virtual session. Contact us for any other accessibility needs.