DANCING WITH THE CCH STARS : Interview with winner Dr. Akram Arab

KRYSTINE THERRIAULT

ktherriault@seawaynews.media

How did you decide to enter a team into the Dancing with the CCH Stars competition? Have you ever danced before?

I was actually approached by Amy Gillespie, I think it was in 2019, to talk about this event and at the time I didn’t have a dance partner. I enjoy dancing but I hadn’t really done any competitive dancing before, so I was willing to throw my hat into the ring. She actually helped me network with my dance partner; she was the one to introduce me to her. She had been friends with her in Toronto and knew that she had been a dancer so she put us together and it was actually a perfect match. We had a lot of good chemistry and we had quite a good time together.

I hear you trained for 5 months ahead of the competition. What was your training experience like?

It was intense. Between our busy schedules it was sometimes hard to find mutually convenient time. Most of the time we ended up training on Sunday evenings and sometimes I was on call during those training sessions but honestly it was a blast. The team that we had training us – Anthony and Susan from the Powell School of Dance – fantastic instructors, very patient. Sometimes we had to redo the same move multiple times because it wasn’t sticking, you know trying to move your hands and feet at the same time just wasn’t intuitive, but it was lots of fun and I would definitely participate again if there weren’t enough participants next year.

Your dance partner Meghan Cafferky is a therapeutic Pilates instructor at Momentum Physiotherapy – is there anything you’d like to say about your partnership that helped you make it to the top?

Meghan’s dance background and experience was definitely instrumental in carrying us through. She taught dance in Toronto I think for 15 or 20 years before moving to the Cornwall area. She had a studio there and used to do theatre and dance. It was really important that one of us had some solid dance experience, although neither of us had really done the cha-cha before so it was a learning curve for her as well but obviously, she was much quicker on her feet. The partnership was fantastic. We always got commented on how good the chemistry was onstage for the audience.

I hear the success of this event means Dancing with the CCH Stars will return in 2024 – what do you think other healthcare professionals can learn from this competition?

I think the thing the group of healthcare professionals benefited from was the boost in morale that occurred in the hospital. You know, people were rallying behind their favorite teams (usually department specific) but we had multiple teams from our ICU compete, so we had some of our support split amongst the three different teams. But what they really take from it is that this is an opportunity to

Gold at Ontario Senior Games 65+

Congratulations to CCC’s Team Sobering, who competed in the Ontario Senior Games 65+ curling event in Trenton (Ontario Senior Games Association). They won gold with a record of 4 wins and 1 loss in the round robin event and have won the right to represent Ontario in this event at the National Games. Ontario Senior Games Association. Congratulations on being the 65+ Ontario provincial curling champions and representing the Cornwall Curling Centre! From left to right: Skip: Bill Sobering, Third: Nancee Cruickshank, Second: David Cruickshank and Lead; Janice Sobering. Submitted photo develop a new skill, learn some new techniques and be able to fundraise for your community while rallying support from both your healthcare colleagues and the individuals in your own community while boosting the morale of everyone. I think this has been something that a lot of people will want to do next year based on how much fun the participants had this time around.

Tell me a little about your project, worth $50,000, that you successfully won for frontline workers and local patients.

We were fundraising for new equipment for our ICU. The monitors that we use to monitor people’s hearts and respiratory mechanics and oxygen levels and CO2 levels, our machines were getting a little dated. The $50,000 that we won for the ICU will hopefully improve the quality of care that we can deliver by improving the quality of the monitoring that we can do in our ICU. The other item that we were fundraising for was to increase the capacity of our pumps that we use to deliver IV medications and nutrition. So hopefully we will be able to buy a triple therapy pump that’s frequently in short supply.

Congratulations on helping Cornwall Community Hospital Foundation reach a total of $125,000 net dollars for our hospital. Is there anything else you’d like the community to know?

I just want to let the community know that we are very much appreciative of their support behind our cause and both the monetary and personal support that they’ve thrown behind everyone in the competition and behind the foundation. I think its going to pay in dividends to the community when the quality of care is improved at the Cornwall Community Hospital so that when people are sick, they have the best and most cutting-edge care that they could receive locally. Thank you to the community for everything they’ve done to support the event. We look forward to seeing them again in the next year and hopefully make it bigger and better.