Thank you to all our amazing participants at the Clinician and Parent Meeting about Extremely Preterm Breech Birth that took place on Sept 13, 2019!
Clinician and Parent Meeting
Congratulations to Dr. Morfaw!
Dr. Morfaw was one of the three recipients of this year’s David Sackett scholarship, an annual award in the HEI Department (Health Research Methods, Evidence, & Impact) that recognizes academic and research excellence.
Congratulations to Dr. Morfaw on this award that recognized his very hard work during his PhD, which he remarkably completed in only 2 years!
Welcome New Team Members!
We are pleased to extend a warm welcome to all new team members!
Dr. Frederick Morfaw is an obstetrician from Cameroon who has joined the team as a postdoctoral fellow in perinatal clinical epidemiology and systematic review/meta-analysis (SRMA). He has recently successfully defended his PhD here with Dr. Lehana Thabane, the head of the Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact Department.
Megan Briggs is a nurse who previously worked at the obstetrical unit at West Lincoln, one of our Level 1 hospital’s in the region, and more recently at the Juravinski Cancer Centre. She is currently working on her Perinatal Nursing Certificate in high risk obstetrics.
Emma Koster, Josephine Ding and Jake Colautti are Bachelor of Health Science students at McMaster, who will be joining the team as student research assistants!
We look forward to working towards improving the health of women and children together!
Canadian Institute of Health Research: The Faces of Health Research
We are excited to share a piece published in the CIHR’s health research storybook: The faces of health research. Available in the July 2019 CIHR Access Newsletter, ‘Preventing Preterm Birth and its Consequences’ describes Dr. McDonald’s personal experiences, the team’s research on progesterone as a preventative measure against preterm birth, as well as our other current endeavours.
More details are available here.
McMaster #2 Globally in Impact Rankings
We are delighted to learn that McMaster has been placed second globally (and first nationally) in the University Impact Rankings by Times Higher Education! This ranking is the first and only global system to utilize criteria based on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) developed by the United Nations, and includes more than 500 universities from 80 different countries around the globe.
Furthermore, universities were also ranked specifically in relation to each SDG. We are pleased to find that McMaster ranked #1 in Decent Work and Economic Growth, #2 in Good Health and Well-Being, #14 in Sustainable Cities and Communities, #16 in Partnership for the Goals and #68 in Gender Equality!
More details can be found here, at the Times Higher Education website.
CANN 2019 Workshop
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Sarah McDonald was invited to participate in the Canadian Association of Neonatal Nurses 2019 Pre-Conference Workshop on April 7th.
Alongside Kasia Pytlik, Social Worker & Program Coordinator at the Perinatal Parents Association, and Amanda Oram, NICU Parent and Parent Advisor at MSH, Dr. McDonald was part of a panel titled Trying again after a Perinatal Loss or Stay in the NICU.
This session has been live-streamed and a recording can be accessed here.
NIHR Signal
We are excited to announce that the team’s research has been chosen to be summarized as a National Institute for Health Research Signal! The NIHR is the health promotion wing of the NHS in the UK, and releases “Signals” of important research to inform the public as a great way of knowledge translation.
Dr. Alexander Jarde’s revised Network meta-analysis, “Vaginal progesterone, oral progesterone, 17-OHPC, cerclage and passage for preventing preterm birth in at risk singleton pregnancies: an updated systematic review and network meta-analysis” was chosen for its high quality design and relevance to UK decision makers.
Thank you, Dr. Jarde, for your continued dedication to improving the health of women and infants!
The publication can viewed online or downloaded as a PDF.
Welcome Dr. Marseu!
We are happy to welcome Dr. Ali Marseu, a Maternal-Fetal Medicine (MFM) Fellow! She brings wonderful clinical skills, and we look forward to working together to improve the health of women and infants!
Congratulations to Dr. Grabovac and Dr. Moramarco at CNPRM!
We would like to congratulate Dr. Marinela Grabovac and Dr. Veronica Moramarco for their presentations at the Canadian National Perinatal Research Meeting!
Dr. Grabovac presented two posters about (1) a prediction model on excess total pregnancy weight gain, and (2) whether first trimester weight gain alone predicts total pregnancy weight gain. She did a great job!
Dr. Moramarco also had an oral presentation, titled “Classical Caesarean: What are the maternal and infant risks compared to low transverse caesarean in preterm birth, and subsequent uterine rupture risks? A systematic review and meta-analysis,” which generated a lot of interest!
Their conference abstracts are available here.
Thank you both for your hard work in knowledge translation and improving the health of women and infants!
Welcome Angel!
We are excited to welcome Angel Gao, who will be joining our team as a student research assistant! Angel is in her first year of Bachelor of Health Sciences (Hons.). We look forward to working together to improve the health of women and infants!
