Presented by: Dr. Akos Kazinczi & Dr. Birbui Biman
When: Tuesday March 4, 2025
Time: 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Meeting number: 2335 131 3561
Password: Meeting
“The Department of Internal Medicine Monthly Rounds is a self-approved group learning activity (Section 1) as defined by the Maintenance of Certification Program of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.”
Article:
In recognition of Black History Month, we encourage you to explore the works of influential Black writers and activists. These powerful narratives offer insight into the struggles and resilience of Black communities throughout history, as well as the ongoing pursuit of equity and social justice. By engaging with these voices, both during Black History Month and throughout the year, we can deepen our understanding of Black history and culture, while honoring those who have shaped it.
If you have any questions, or would like to provide feedback related to equity, diversity, and inclusion, please contact Rae-Anne Robinson, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Coordinator at rae-anne.robinson@tbh.net, or the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Steering Committee at tbrhsc.edisteeringcommittee@tbh.net.
How to be Antiracist – Ibram X. Kendi
In his memoir, Kendi weaves together an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science–including the story of his own awakening to antiracism–bringing it all together in a cogent, accessible form. https://www.cdnsba.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Reading-on-Anti-Racism-for-Trustees.pdf
So You Want To Talk About Race – Ijeoma Oluo
In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from police brutality and cultural appropriation to the model minority myth in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race, and about how racism infects every aspect of American life. https://www.amazon.ca/You-Want-Talk-About-Race/dp/1580056776#:~:text=In%20So%20You%20Want%20to,infects%20every%20aspect%20of%20American
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness – Michelle Alexander
Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. https://thenewpress.com/books/new-jim-crow
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents – Isabel Wilkerson
Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Isabel Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. https://www.nationalbook.org/books/caste-the-origins-of-our-discontents/
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor – Layla Saad
Updated and expanded from the original workbook (downloaded by nearly 100,000 people), this critical text helps you take the work deeper by adding more historical and cultural contexts, sharing moving stories and anecdotes, and including expanded definitions, examples, and further resources, giving you the language to understand racism, and to dismantle your own biases, whether you are using the book on your own, with a book club, or looking to start family activism in your own home. https://apps.asha.org/eweb/OLSDynamicPage.aspx?Webcode=olsdetails&title=Me+and+White+Supremacy+
The Fire Next Time – James Baldwin
The book includes two essays that were written in the 1960s during a time of segregation between White and Black Americans. In his essays, Baldwin’s purpose was to reach a mass white audience and help them to better understand Black Americans’ struggle for equal rights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fire_Next_Time
Read This to Get Smarter About Race, Class, Gender, Disability, & More – Blair Imani
An approachable guide to being an informed, compassionate, and socially conscious person today—from issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation to disability, class, and beyond—from critically acclaimed historian, educator, and author. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57663076-read-this-to-get-smarter
The 1619 Project – Nikole Hannah-Jones
The 1619 Project, published by the New York Times, retells the history of the U.S. by foregrounding the arrival 401 years ago of enslaved Africans to Virginia. Through a series of essays, photos, and podcasts, The 1619 Project charts the impact of slavery on the country’s founding principles, economy, health care system, racial segregation of neighborhoods and schools, popular music and visual representations. Conversations around The 1619 project have served as a flashpoint for intensive ideological debates about its content and impact. It has been both widely lauded and subjected to critiques from academics, journalists, pundits and policymakers who challenge its accuracy and its interpretation of history. https://www.humanities.uci.edu/humanitiescenter/1619-project
Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates
Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward. https://ta-nehisicoates.com/books/between-the-world-and-me/
A Love Letter to Africville – Amanda Carvery-Taylor
A Love Letter to Africville is a dazzling compilation of personal stories and photos from former residents of Africville. Much has been written about the struggles of the Africville community, who have been hurt, discriminated against and dispossessed for so long – but Africville is so much more than just the pain. This book recasts the historical narrative to help former residents heal by emphasizing the beautiful and positive aspects of Africville. Amanda Carvery-Taylor organizes captivating stories and stunning photography that express the love and importance of Africville. This book is a warm hug from one of Canada’s most important storied communities. https://www.cbc.ca/books/a-love-letter-to-africville-1.5896839
The Sweetness of Water – Nathan Harris
In the spirit of The Known World and The Underground Railroad, a profound debut about the unlikely bond between two freedmen who are brothers and the Georgia farmer whose alliance will alter their lives, and his, forever. In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry—freed by the Emancipation Proclamation—seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm, hoping through an unexpected friendship to stanch their grief. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54404602-the-sweetness-of-water
The Book of Negroes – Lawrence Hill
Abducted as a child from her village in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea, Aminata Diallo is sent to live as a slave in South Carolina. But years later, she forges her way to freedom, serving the British in the Revolutionary War, registering her name in the historic “Book of Negroes” and eventually travelling back to Africa. A sweeping story that transports the reader from a tribal African village to a plantation in the southern United States, from the teeming Halifax docks to the manor houses of London, The Book of Negroes introduces one of the strongest female characters in Canadian fiction, one who cuts a swath through a world hostile to her colour and her sex. https://www.lawrencehill.com/the-book-of-negroes
Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison
Song of Solomon, the first African American novel since Native Son to be a Book-of-the-Month Club main selection, blends African American folklore, history, and literary tradition to celebrate the moral and spiritual revival of Macon Dead, the first male protagonist in a Morrison novel, via the guidance and example of his aunt Pilate, another of Morrison’s unconventional, soul-liberating heroines. https://www.britannica.com/art/African-American-literature/Renaissance-in-the-1970s#ref793894
Girl, Woman, Other – Bernardine Evaristo
Teeming with life and crackling with energy — a love song to modern Britain and black womanhood. Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years. Joyfully polyphonic and vibrantly contemporary, this is a gloriously new kind of history, a novel of our times: celebratory, ever-dynamic and utterly irresistible. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41081373-girl-woman-other
Transcendent Kingdom – Yaa Gyasi
Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom, one of the most anticipated novels of 2020, delivers an intimate portrayal of a Ghanaian family making its way in the contemporary American South, a story as multifaceted as the human brain itself. For Gyasi to write a novel strong enough to follow her highly acclaimed debut Homegoing, she had to create the diamond that is Transcendent Kingdom. https://therumpus.net/2021/02/03/transcendent-kingdom-by-yaa-gyasi/
Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
There are some novels that tell a great story and others that make you change the way you look at the world. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah is a book that manages to do both. It is ostensibly a love story – the tale of childhood sweethearts at school in Nigeria whose lives take different paths when they seek their fortunes in America and England – but it is also a brilliant dissection of modern attitudes to race, spanning three continents and touching on issues of identity, loss and loneliness. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/apr/15/americanah-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-review
NOSM University’s Mini Med School sessions are coming up and open to the general public. They will be hosting two sessions, with the in-person sessions at NOSM University, Thunder Bay campus. The session will be live-streamed to the Thunder Bay 55 Plus Centre, as well as the Marathon, North Shore, and Wawa Family Health Teams.
Register at https://event.fourwaves.com/minimed2025/registration.
March 3, 2025 at 7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Objectives: By the end of this session, participants will be able to describe what diabetes is and its associated risk factors. Participants will also be able to recognize how diabetes affects the body, plan for preventing complications, and identify effective lifestyle and pharmacological strategies to manage diabetes
March 17, 2025 at 7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Objectives: By the end of this session, participants will be able to identify the different causes of back pain, list symptoms of life-threatening back pain, and develop a plan for preventing and managing mechanical lower back pain.
Feedback will be collected from attendees to evaluate areas that need change to create a more robust event in 2026.
Shared on behalf of Dr. Rhonda Crocker Ellacott, President and CEO, Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre; CEO, Thunder Bay Regional Health Research Institute
I am pleased to announce that Justin Garofalo has accepted the position of Vice President, Facilities, Capital Planning, Support Services, and Chief Financial Officer.
In this position, Justin will report to the President and CEO and as a member of the Senior Leadership Council, Justin will provide leadership to support the Hospital’s mission, vision and goals as aligned to our Strategic Plan. In this role, Justin will serve as the Chief Financial Officer for both the Hospital and the Health Research Institute, and will oversee Facilities, Capital Planning, Support Services, Financial Services, Decision Support, and Cyclotron.
Justin has been serving as Interim Vice President and Chief Financial Officer since August 21, 2024. Since this time, Justin has supported and improved operations throughout the Hospital and ensured financial stability. Justin has also shown to be a very valued member of the Senior Leadership Council and a team leader throughout his interim portfolio and beyond.
Justin’s educational background includes an Honours Bachelor of Commerce Degree majoring in Accounting, an Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) from the University of Fredericton in 2014 and a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA, CA) designation with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario. Throughout Justin’s professional journey, he has held numerous positions within the financial sector and hospital setting. He possesses strong financial acumen, leadership skills, and interpersonal skills; all instrumental in his success and those that have had the honour of working with Justin.
Please join me in congratulating Justin on his appointment to his new position that will take effect February 18, 2025. Details on any changes with reporting relationships and the transition of portfolios will be forthcoming.
Shared on behalf of Dr. Rhonda Crocker Ellacott, President and CEO, Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre; CEO, Thunder Bay Regional Health Research Institute
In follow-up to the appointment into the role of Vice President, Facilities, Capital Planning, Support Services, and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of both TBRHSC and TBRHRI, please note the following transition of portfolios that will be effective February 24, 2025:
I would like to take this opportunity to thank both Jeannine and Dino who have diligently overseen the above portfolios during this interim period. Their guidance and support have ensured continuity of our operations and shown exemplary leadership.
Jessica Logozzo, VP, Strategy and Regional Transformation, will continue to oversee Information Technology and Information Services at this time.
We appreciate your support as we re-balance our operations.
Shared on behalf of Infection Prevention and Control
Please be advised that the respiratory outbreak has been declared OVER at TBRHSC-TCU (Transitional Care Unit) inpatient unit. All restrictions have been lifted.
Outbreak #2262-2025-00016
Please share this information with the appropriate staff.
As always, our number one priority is the safety of patients and their families, staff and visitors. The department of Infection Prevention and Control encourages everyone to keep applying the routine practices of hand hygiene, proper use of PPE, equipment cleaning, and the appropriate admission screening of all patients. Please set an example for staff and students and assist us by maintaining compliance and due diligence.
In collaboration with the existing provincial transport teams and ORNGE, Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre’s Paediatric Emergency Transport Team is drastically improving access to care and reducing wait times for patients in communities across Northwestern Ontario, so they can receive the emergency care they need as fast as possible.
The transport team will eventually operate 24/7 and will consist of one registered respiratory therapist (RRT) and one registered nurse (RN), supported by a paediatrician.
We’d like to introduce you to a couple of vital members of the PETT — Jordan, an RRT, and Michelle, an RN.
Name: Jordan Z.
Position: Transport Registered Respiratory Therapist
What is your role on the Paediatric Emergency Transport Team?
General duties that fall under the RRT role that is completed within the hospital (airway management, invasive and non-invasive ventilation management, oxygen therapy, etc.), second assist for Transport RN (intravenous line insertion, blood collection and testing, medication delivery, second check for medications, etc.), and extended advanced skills (intraosseous needle insertion, chest tube insertion, needle thoracentesis).
Why did you want to be a part of this team?
Being a part of a new program is always exciting and I wanted to be a part of it. Gaining enhanced skills that translate to my every day practice.
How does having a team of individuals from diverse backgrounds contribute to the team’s overall success?
Having a team filed with individuals with diverse backgrounds and skills contributes to the success of this program by giving alternate perspectives and ideas on patient care, and it broadens overall skillset which increases the ability to problem solve and adapt in high stress scenarios.
Name: Michelle Lockhart
Position: Registered Nurse, NICU/PETT
What is your role on the Paediatric Emergency Transport Team?
As a registered nurse on the Paediatric Emergency Transport Team, my role is to provide critical care to paediatric patients during transport to and from various health care facilities. This involves assessing the patient’s condition, managing any medical needs, and ensuring their safety throughout the journey. We may be transporting a patient from TBRHSC to a tertiary paediatric hospital for specialized care, transporting them back from the tertiary centre, or transporting them to TBRHSC from a rural or northern hospital or nursing station. I work in a team with a registered respiratory therapist to stabilize the patient and provide interventions like administering medications, monitoring vital signs, and performing or assisting with life-saving procedures as needed.
Why did you want to be a part of this team?
I wanted to be a part of this team because I’m passionate about providing specialized, life-saving care to critically ill or injured neonatal and paediatric patients, and I thrive in fast-paced, high-pressure environments. Working on this team allows me to use my skills to make a tangible difference during critical moments. It’s an opportunity to collaborate with a dedicated group of health care professionals, with the added challenge of delivering complex care outside of a traditional hospital setting. Most importantly, I’m motivated by the chance to support both the children and their families during some of their most vulnerable moments, ensuring they feel safe and cared for during transport.
How does having a team of individuals from diverse backgrounds contribute to the team’s overall success?
Having a team of individuals from diverse backgrounds greatly contributes to the team’s overall success by bringing different perspectives, experiences, and skill sets that enhance problem-solving and decision making. Diverse teams are better equipped to identify and adapt to the unique needs of patients, improving patient care and family interactions.
