Letter from the Editors

We hope you are all looking forward to a warm and rejuvenating spring season, especially aft er a long, snow-fi lled winter. Instead of highlighting a particular disease for the Spring 2022 issue, we have decided to examine patient engagement in research for the issue theme. Th is is a very timely topic as it has become increasingly more commonplace for patients and community members to play an important role in all research areas. Patient engagement is also important in our own work, and we hope this issue highlights its importance in research and some excellent examples of patient engagement at IMS.

Th is issue, we featured IMS members Drs. Sean Rourke, Samantha Anthony, David Langelier, and Emily Ho who are all pioneering patient engagement initiatives in HIV, pediatric rehabilitation, cancer, and occupational therapy respectively. We put the spotlight on Dr. Ahmed Hassan who is exploring personalized medicine for treating mental health in the Muslim Community; and Dr. Karolina Bidzinski, an alum who goes over how she made the transition to management consulting. We also pay tribute to the life and work of Jasmine Quigley and the IMS award created to honour her memory.

Our Viewpoint articles for this issue provide insights into MDMA as a potential treatment for PTSD, the need for pharmacare in Canada, the use of mindfulness to help with neurorehabilitation, and improving science communication in public health. We also have a Diversity in Science article that examines medical mistrust in Black and Indigenous communities, and we follow an international student’s journey towards their PhD in our Travel Bite. Lastly, we are happy to include our second collaboration with Raw Talk Podcast with an article based on their 103rd episode on Underrepresentation in STEM.

We are extremely proud of this issue and of all the work of the IMS Magazine team. We hope you enjoy reading this issue and we look forward to producing our next issue in the summer!

Jason Lo Hog Tian

Jason is a 4th year PhD student examining the mechanisms linking HIV stigma and health under the supervision of Dr. Sean Rourke.

@JasonLoTweets Mikaeel Valli

Mikaeel is a 5th year PhD student. He works with Dr. Antonio Strafella’s lab that uses neuroimaging techniques to understand the underlying mechanisms in Parkinson’s disease with nonmotor complications.

linkedin.com/in/mikaeel-valli/