Nancy Cho, BSc (Rehab)'82

Nancy Cho, BSc (Rehab)’82

Knowing that we’re stronger together, a small group of UBC’s first graduates formed alumni UBC on May 4, 1917. Now we’re more than 337,000 strong, spanning over 148 countries.

The Alumni Builder Awards were established as part of alumni UBC 100, the alumni association’s centennial, to recognize alumni who, in their own way, have made important contributions to the success of UBC and its alumni community. The awards are presented by alumni UBC on the recommendation and in partnership with UBC’s faculties, advisory councils, and other leadership groups.

We are pleased to announce our Alumni Builder Award 2018 recipient is Nancy Cho, BSc (Rehab)’82.

Please join us in recognizing Nancy for her dedication to education and furthering the practice of physiotherapy, and many years of volunteer service to the Faculty of Medicine.

Tuum Est!

In all, 13 Alumni Builders are being recognized this year. A complete list of recipients can be found at www.alumni.ubc.ca.

Maryam Zeineddin BSc’98, MD’03

Dr. Maryam Zeineddin, BSc’98 MD’03, is a family practice physician and the chair of Zili, a not for profit organization that promotes and supports preventative health initiatives in Canada and across the globe.

After completing her undergrad, MD, and family practice residency in Vancouver, Dr. Zeineddin opened a full service medical centre in Vancouver. During the course of her practice she began searching for a way to continue to educate her patients in their own preventative health care. By increasing education, you can increase ownership of your own health.

Dr. Zeineddin’s work with her own patients led her to see a bigger purpose, to bring Canadians the right information and create a movement: the education of prevention. Zili was born of this desire to “promote evidence-based preventative health information from local family physicians, specialists and allied health care professionals”. Zili Health’s vision is to bring a digital platform for a more global reach.

In June 2017, the first Zili Women’s Preventative Health Conference was held in Vancouver BC. The conference, which features a forum and interactive sessions, brings together 300 patients, physicians, and allied healthcare professionals for a full day women’s preventative healthcare. Speaker topics from the past two conferences include aging parents, relationships with food, avoiding and screening for the top four chronic conditions, meditation, parenting resilient kids, and the truths and myths of cosmetic surgery.

When asked to look back on her time as a student at UBC, Dr. Zeineddin fondly recalls establishing a Red Cross Club to raise funds for earthquake victims and her involvement with intramural sports. An avid player of Hockey, Basketball, Soccer, and Ultimate, she credits participating in intramurals during her studies with bringing her balance and at the same time maintaining a focus on healthy living and medicine.

In addition to her work as a family physician and chair of Zili, Dr. Zeineddin is a clinical instructor for UBC Family Practice and acknowledges that her greatest achievement is that she is still healthy with 2 beautiful children, a loving husband, and an exceptional support system.

You can learn more about Zili and their mission at www.zilihealth.com

 

Victoria Renwick MPT’17

Victoria Renwick, MPT’17 is a Human Physiotherapist with the CBI Health Group and is also a Canine Rehabilitation Therapist and Owner of Pawsiotherapy Canine Physio & Rehab in Chilliwack, BC. Read our Q& A with MPT alumna to learn more about what she does and why she chose to also practice on canines!


Describe what you do at your workplace in two or three sentences.

I have the best job ever, I get to help people — and DOGS — get better! As a movement specialist, I help them to improve their mobility and physical functioning through Physiotherapy treatment. Some of the treatment techniques we use include therapeutic exercise, manual therapy, modalities, and education.


What led you to choose to study and practice physiotherapy?

My passion for movement, active living, and education lead me in the right direction. Once I got hooked, the rest was history! When presented with the opportunity to learn how to practice Physiotherapy on canine clients I jumped at the chance to challenge myself, to be creative, and to help a broader scope of patients.


What do you consider your greatest achievement to date?

I think my greatest achievement, or the one I’m most proud of, is a combination of achievements. Last year, I finished one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my life: I worked diligently to pursue my Diploma in Canine Rehabilitation through the Animal Rehab Division of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association, and started my own business Pawsiotherapy Canine Physio & Rehab in May 2017, all while finishing my Masters of Physiotherapy at UBC.

 

What is the best professional advice you’ve received?

”Don’t burn yourself out!” As much as I’m overflowed with passion, challenge, and creativity with my career, I’m also slowly learning I need to take time for myself. I find down time challenging, but with the advice and support from my colleagues and mentors, I’m doing my best to balance my career and tough days with my hobbies and recreation. Outside of work, I love to dog sit, skydive, hike, snowboard, play soccer and volleyball, run, dirt bike, woodwork, dance, go boating, and explore the backcountry.

 

What advice would you give to current PT students?

Enjoy every minute, the good stuff and especially the hard, work together, use your big buddies and mentors, it goes by way too fast. And never stop being curious, never lose your drive to know more and do better. Our silly type A personalities got us this far, and trust me, our clients appreciate it when it helps them get the best outcomes.

 

What profession might you have pursued, if not for physiotherapy?

I used to be a Rehab Assistant and Strength Coach, so if helping injured and deconditioned clients with their mobility didn’t rope me in, I think I would have pursued the Strength Coach avenue further and helped healthy movers move better.

 

What are the best aspects of your career?

  1. Each client is a unique puzzle to get to work out with them and solve. It gets better, then you get to cater your assessment and treatment specifically to that person, their unique goals and desires, their personal concerns and struggles and help them move better, safer, and more comfortably – be the client 4 legged or 2!
  2. I get to be creative with my practice, adapting my skills from a context where clients are upright and verbal, to quadrupeds with owners and expressive ears.
  3. I’m surrounded by other curious, intelligent, inspiring Physios who are always around to bounce ideas off each-other and collaborate in care plans or educate me as a new grad eager to soak up their years of experience and wisdom.
  4. I get to pet and play with dogs, while helping them move better, and they love you for it!
  5. I get to spend 60 hours a week immersed with people and a practice I’m furiously passionate about, it doesn’t get much better than that!

 

Today in healthcare it’s important to…

Treat the patient and not the problem. Too often the individual gets lost in the mix of science and research and what works in the lab. It is important to cater best practices to the individual in front of you, be it an elderly man post joint replacement wanting to get back to curling, a young mother who struggles through shoulder pain to care for her newborn, or a spry pup with hip dysplasia.

 

Physical Therapists in Motion – A Student and Practitioner Mixer

Money Management – A Workshop for Healthcare Professionals

Throughout our careers, from graduation to retirement, we all have money, debt and tax questions to be answered. Recently or soon to be graduated? Get some debt management and tax advice. Thinking of incorporating your practice? Find out the pros and cons. No matter what stage in your career you’re at, join our partners at MNP, a leading national accounting, tax and business consulting firm in Canada, to talk tax, accounting, and making your money work for you!

Presented in partnership with:

Speakers

Shaun Howe – CPA, CA, Senior Manager, Professional Services

Shaun is a Senior Manager with MNP’s Professional services team in the South Surrey office. He has been with MNP for over 7 years, and works primarily with healthcare professionals. Shaun works with each of his healthcare clients on a variety of matters, such as tax planning, acquiring or selling practices, financial performance, general business matters, as well as tax compliance.

Kerry Smith – CPA, CA, Senior Manager, Professional Services

Kerry is a Senior Manager with MNP’s Professional Services team in the Vancouver office. With a strong focus on incorporated healthcare professionals, Kerry assists clients in many aspects of their professional career such as cash flow management, debt repayment, retirement, and strategic tax and estate planning. He takes pride in working with clients to help them achieve their personal and business goals by looking beyond tax returns and financial statements.

 

Event Details

Date: Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Time:

 

 5.30 – 6.00pm Registration and Networking
6.00 – 7.00pm Workshop
7.00 – 7.30pm Q&A

Location:

 

 Medical Student and Alumni Centre (MSAC)
2750 Heather Street – Hardwick Hall
V5Z 4M2

 

Please join us for this complimentary event – advance registration is required. Light refreshments will be provided.

Isabelle Chen MD MPH’15

Dr. Isabelle Chen was selected out of 3500 eligible family medicine residents for the 2017 American Academy of Family Physicians Award for Excellence in Graduate Medical Education “for leadership, civic involvement, exemplary patient care since 1952.”

James Watt BSc’62, MD’67

Dr. James Watt is a 2018 recipient of the UBC Medical Alumni Association Wallace Wilson Leadership Award.

Dr. James Watt graduated from UBC Medical School in 1967 and moved to Rhodesia Zimbabwe, with his wife Bette (BEd’65, MEd’69) in 1970 to take up the post of Chief Medical Officer for Howard Hospital. He remained in Rhodesia until 1984 and returned in 1994 before finally retiring in 1999.

Howard Hospital, a 167 bed general hospital, included medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics, psychiatry, infectious diseases, nurse’s training and community health. In his own words, “due to the 7-year-long War of Independence, I was the only doctor [there] for half this time, starting mobile clinics on land-mined roads to serve the “protected villages” (concentration camps). With our excellent staff, we organized the first mass polio, diphtheria, tetanus and measles campaigns, helping to wipe out these diseases. [We] opposed torture and treated both sides in the conflict, resulting in threats of detention, expulsion and death.”

During his years at Howard Hospital he “helped turn Howard from a few ramshackle buildings into today’s modern health centre that provides affordable care for 270,000 people. Having had a front row seat to the country’s brutal civil war throughout the 1970s, [Dr.] Watt survived multiple assassination attempts along with the largest anthrax outbreak in human history as he and a handful of international doctors grew the hospital on a shoestring budget.” [1]

In 1979, death threats caused him to withdraw from the Howard Hospital; however, he remained in Rhodesia, soon to become Zimbabwe. During this time he worked for the Ministry of Health designing and building teaching aids for rural health workers, treating victims of chemical and biological warfare agents and the plague, and also as a lectured at the University of Zimbabwe Community Medicine based at the Julius Robinson Center.

He returned to Canada in 1984 due to fatigue and polyneuropathy, likely caused by exposure to chemical warfare agents. In Calgary, he worked for the Salvation Army Children’s Village and in 1989 Dr. Watt established the Calgary Urban Project Society (CUPS) street clinic. In 1995, he returned to the Howard Hospital where, in his own words, “he started four groups of AIDS-education workers in three languages, using puppets, demonstrations, song and story to educate and empower the youth, especially girls, in the prevention of AIDS.” In 1999, he passed the title of Chief Medical Officer to Dr. Paul Thistle and retired a year later.

In addition to his inspiring work as a physician, Dr. Watt is credited as the inventor of the tippy tap. “Tippy-Tap is a low cost, low water, low tech device to wash your hands in areas where there is no running water … [Dr. Watt] came up with a novel idea of converting the common gourd or calabash into a hand-washing device, which came to be known as ‘Mukombe’.” [2] To learn more about the Tippy-Tap visit http://www.tippytap.org/.

Dr. Watt was awarded the Legión de Honor Nacional de México in 1985 and most recently in 2018 the UBC Medical Alumni Association’s Wallace Wilson Leadership Award.

[1] http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/2012/08/22/supporters-worry-about-future-of-hospital-doctor

[2] https://permaculturenews.org/2014/06/10/tippy-tap-an-outdoor-hand-washing-device/

Pat Camp BSc (Phys Ther)’94, MSc’98, PhD’08

Dr. Gurdev Gill MD’57, DSc’96

Dr. Gurdev Gill is a 2018 recipient of the UBC Medical Alumni Association Wallace Wilson Leadership Award.

The history of Asian immigration to Canada is characterized by prejudice, discrimination and exclusion. When Dr. Gurdev Gill arrived in Vancouver from India’s Punjab region in 1949 immigration policy was still biased towards Europeans and residents of South Asian origin were not treated as equal members of society.

Dr. Gill became a citizen in 1954, but the 1950s and 60s continued to present human rights issues for minorities. Over the years he has been centrally involved in several organizations that support new immigrants from South Asia, helping them adapt to Canadian culture and promoting equality and intercultural understanding.

In 1957, Dr.Gill became the first Indo-Canadian to graduate from UBC medical school and practice medicine in Canada. As a student, he co-founded the East India Student Association and served as its first secretary. During the 1960s he lobbied government in his official capacity as president of the East Indian Welfare Association. In 1970, the Khalsa Diwan Society, under his leadership, raised funds to build a Sikh temple on Ross Street in Vancouver, an important resource for the Indo-Canadian community.

In 1976, Dr. Gill founded the Indo-Canadian Friendship Society of BC. Initially focused on improving race relations in Canada, from the mid-1990s the organization has set its sights on improving living conditions for rural communities in Punjab. Since India’s sanitation is recognized as among the worst in the world, the projects have focused on providing clean, running drinking water, and building underground sewage systems and waste water treatment plants. The result is a marked decrease in disease – especially gastroenteritis, responsible for 400,000 deaths in India annually.

Starting with Kharoudi village, where Dr. Gill was born, projects have so far been carried out in 16 communities at a cost of approximately $3M. As well as improved sanitation, they have introduced solar street lighting and computer education in schools. Along with the health benefits, Dr. Gill is happy to report improvements in gender equality, education, governance and employment.

Dr. Gill achieved all this with grass roots support, fending off corruption by insisting on as much transparency in the process as possible and keeping costs low. Now retired from his New Westminster practice, he spends half the year living in India overseeing projects.

Dr. Gill’s work has improved the quality of life for thousands of people in India and Canada and his global citizenship has helped to foster a stronger and more inclusive society. In 1990 Dr. Gill became the first Indo-Canadian to receive the Order of BC. On the 125th anniversary of confederation, he received a commemorative medal from the Government of Canada. He received an honorary degree from UBC in 1996 and the Global Citizenship Alumni Achievement Award from alumni UBC in 2013.

Profile courtesy of alumni UBC

Kiran Dhillon MD’16

Dr. Kiran Dhillon was recently awarded with both the Westview Physician Collaborative Resident Leadership Award and the Patricia Ann Peat Family Medicine Enhancement Fund award.