UTDRO hosts another successful Research Day
This year’s University of Toronto Department of Radiation Oncology (UTDRO) Research Day was a huge success. A total of 120 attendees came out to the event made up of approximately 70 trainees and 50 faculty members. Many of the faculty members are also supervisors to the trainees and have mentored them during their research projects.
UTDRO Chair Dr. Fei-Fei Liu kicked off the day by highlighting the importance of the event for all of our trainees. She also commented on the quality and caliber of research coming from the department.
Keynote speaker Dr. Shelly Dev gave her talk entitled, One Physician's Story: The Intersection of Medical Culture and Physician Wellness, which delved into her own experience balancing mental health within an incredibly challenging and demanding field.
“I’ve been invited to speak here not because I blew the lid off the cure-all for wellness,” said Dr. Dev. “It’s because I’ve been very public about being unwell and who better to help you understand the subject than the very person who failed at it and had to learn it properly.”
Dr. Dev shared a number of revelations about mental health and wellness, and about learning how to understand when certain coping mechanisms are not working. She also talked about the importance of refueling, “Knowing what refuels me back to my normal self is as important as knowing how to resuscitate someone who is sick,” said Dr. Dev.
“We need to encourage and support one another as a community to recover from our work as a way of living life in medicine, not just during times of crisis, and we need to do this because it will make our lives healthier, and as a result, the care we provide to our patients better,” concluded Dr. Dev.
Following Dr. Dev’s keynote speech, the trainees began their presentations. A total of 38 abstracts were submitted to the conference, 16 of which were part of an oral presentation series. The remaining 22 were part of a poster presentation and rapid fire presentation series.
Research Day is one of UTDRO’s signature events, which has been running since the department first launched in 1991. The event is an excellent opportunity for trainees to showcase their innovative research; and for our faculty to support them through their journey in becoming the next generation of leaders in radiation medicine.
Dr. Michael Milosevic, Vice Chair of Research concluded the event by thanking the supervisors who play a pivotal role in the trainee experience. “I would like to thank all the supervisors and everyone involved in the research because without your input and your commitment on an ongoing basis, this would never happen,” said Milosevic. “And also for being here today to support your trainees, which is so important.”
The department currently has approximately 60 trainees who are part of the following programs: Radiation oncology residency, medical physics residency and radiation oncology fellowship.
The Department also runs the STARS21 program that provides further training to a select group of trainees. The STARS21 program currently has 16 new trainees.
The Department thanks the Research Day Committee for their time and commitment in organizing Research Day and making it another successful event. Check out the Research Day 2018 photo album.
To learn more about Research Day, visit the Research Day section on our website.