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Unity Health Toronto Newswire:
September 2023

Hi there! After a great summer, it’s full steam ahead for the caring hearts and leading minds at Unity Health. Read on for the latest AI innovations, a meet-cute in the ED and bedside violin concerts!

Dr. Yuchen Dai heals patients with medicine — and music. Dai is an internal medicine resident and a classically-trained violinist, and he recently brought his instrument to St. Michael’s to play for older adult patients. “Music heals at its core,” he says. “I saw a lot of patients smiling and clapping along, which I always love to see.”

Code love: How two people found each other at St. Michael’s

Nurse Alaina met her Toronto Police officer husband Mike in the St. Michael’s Emergency Department while they were both working. Twelve years later they returned to the unlikely romantic location to take their wedding photos.

“This ushers a new era in treatment,” says Dr. Subodh Verma, cardiac surgeon

Ozempic shows promise for people with heart failure

Semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic, can significantly improve symptoms in patients with a common type of heart failure. “This ushers a new era in treatment,” says Dr. Subodh Verma, cardiac surgeon at St. Michael’s and study co-lead.

t. Michael’s vitreoretinal surgeon Dr. Rajeev Muni developed a minimally invasive method for repair

This new retinal detachment procedure can be done without major surgery

Many current techniques for repairing retinal detachment require invasive surgical procedures and significant recovery time. St. Michael’s vitreoretinal surgeon Dr. Rajeev Muni developed a minimally invasive method for repair, allowing patients to resume their normal activities quicker.

Unity Health awarded over $7 million in CIHR funding for research

From prescribing park use for diabetes to creating painkillers that don’t kill, Unity Health researchers are coming up with creative ways to improve health care. This funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research will help advance their important work.

500,000

members in the Our Kids Health community! The platform, which started at St. Michael’s, provides child health information in 10 cultural-linguistic chapters.

$100,000

for the Unity Health Research Cross-Pillar Collaboration Seed Grants. Congrats to this year’s recipients, Dr. Kelsie Thu and Dr. Ashwin Sankar.

10,000,000

people in Ontario are eligible to donate blood, yet just 1.5 per cent of the population donate. Dr. Katerina Pavenski spoke about the need for more blood donations in Ontario hospitals.

Say hello to...

Roberta Pike is the inaugural Director of Indigenous Wellness, Reconciliation and Partnerships at Unity Health Toronto. Pike, Anishinaabekwe from Henvey Inlet First Nation, has heard countless stories from Indigenous patients of the injustices they experienced while receiving care in hospital-based settings. So, she set out to help fix the system. She talks about her new role and what she’s learned over her 33-year career in Indigenous health.

Patient perspectives

“There are many lonely residents who just need a visit, chat, smile, or to be taken to an activity, for example. At Providence, they make sure those things happen,”

says Adele Archer, whose parents were residents at Providence.

“Part of the pain of back to school and back to daycare is the illnesses and we need to use these measures – our good hand washing, having our vaccines, coughing and sneezing into your sleeve, following public health guidance – to weather the storm.”

Dr. Anne Wormsbecker, a pediatrician at St. Michael's Hospital and in the St. Joseph's Health Centre's Just for Kids Clinic.

Shoutouts

Jason Best-Mitchell works his first shift at St. Joe's.

Join us on social media

Our Behind the Mask series now has a permanent, physical display at each of our three sites

Staff and physicians shared their personal stories from the pandemic. Now, the Behind the Mask series is on display at our sites. Take a behind-the-scenes look at them being installed, and be sure to check them out if you are ever at one of the Unity Health locations.