Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Student Mental Health Forum in November

On Wednesday, November 6, the University of Waterloo community is invited to learn how the Committee on Student Mental Health (CoSMH) has been implementing the President’s Advisory Committee on Student Mental Health (PAC-SMH) recommendations. This is an opportunity to hear about the progress being made and next steps involved in supporting and improving student mental health.

In response to increased awareness of the need to address issues affecting student mental health, the University established an advisory committee to prepare a report with actionable recommendations to improve the mental health of undergraduate and graduate students on and off campus.

The final PAC-SMH report provided 36 recommendations related to campus policies and practices; inclusive and supportive campus culture; mental health awareness and communication; prevention and early intervention; service access and delivery; and broad campus-wide matters related to student mental health.

Attend the forum to learn about the recommendations and how the CoSMH has taken action on them. Campus and community experts will be available after the event to answer questions and share more about mental health and well-being on the following topics:

• Prevention of mental health issues and promotion of mental health-care strategies
• Suicide prevention
• Impact of trauma and sexual violence
• Effects of racial injustice
• Gender identity and sexual orientation
• Harm reduction approaches to substance use

Please register for the forum. If you can’t make it in person, a livestream will be available.

Striking a NERv: health tech startup secures $1m in funding

This article was originally published on the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business' website.

NERv Technology Inc., an innovative medtech venture co-founded by a number of University of Waterloo alumni, has secured $1 million CAD in pre-seed funding. In partnership with a number of physician angel-investors, a hospital, and Sunhope Capital VC, this recent round of funding will help to cover the costs associated with preclinical studies and further development of their flagship post-operative sensory platform product.

Annually, 1.7 million patients undergo high-risk abdominal surgeries in the US. These patients are especially susceptible to a post-surgical complication known as anastomotic, or gastrointestinal leak. This complication can arise, on average, in 8% of patients and results in the death of at least 13,000 patients annually in the US. Current complication detection techniques are delayed, costly, reactive, and non-specific. 

The NERv sensory platform is designed to detect anastomotic leakage, or the leakage of content from within the gastrointestinal tract into the abdominal cavity after surgery. Anastomotic leaks often result in a cascade of complications that can lead to mortality and adverse outcomes for the survivors. It affects more than 100,000 patients who go through surgery every year in the United States. NERv’s patent-pending solution is capable of detecting leaks within minutes of incidence.

 "We can't wait to get our product to market to have an impact on patients' outcomes post-operatively. If we manage to just save one patient's life, then we will feel like our efforts were worthwhile," said ⁠Youssef Helwa, NERv Technology Inc. Co-Founder and CEO.

NERv recently completed the first phase of its preclinical studies, successfully detecting gastric, intestinal, urine, bile, and fecal matter. NERv will begin regulatory submissions and clinical studies and pilots in the upcoming months as the solution gets closer to commercialization.

Read the full article.

ToastyToes socks it to the University of Waterloo

A message from the Office of the President.

Did you know socks are one of the most requested, yet least donated items to homeless shelters? For those experiencing or at-risk of homelessness in our community, having clean, dry socks can mean so much, especially in the cold, winter months. ToastyToes is a Region-wide campaign to help meet this important need in our community and the University of Waterloo is proud to be a collection site for this much needed initiative.

The Office of the President and Central Stores have partnered to collect socks on the main University campus. Socks can be dropped off at the Office of the President (Needles Hall 3073) or put in an envelope labelled “Toasty Toes” and added to your daily mail. Men’s socks are preferred, but women’s and children’s socks are also happily accepted. The University of Waterloo also has two additional collection sites in our community as the School of Pharmacy and Velocity Garage are also taking sock donations at their locations in Kitchener. 

Central Stores has been a ToastyToes partner for a number of years and last year donated more than 100 pairs of socks that helped contribute to the campaign’s record collection of 39,500 socks. Collection for ToastyToes runs from October 10 to November 10.

Test of the campus emergency communication system tomorrow

A message from Information Systems and Technology (IST).

The test of the University’s emergency communication system that was scheduled to take place on October 10 failed due to a technical issue that prevented the system from being activated. The team will test the system again on Thursday, October 24 around 10:00 a.m.

Test activation and deactivation messages will be sent using the below channels: 

• Tweets to @UWaterloo and @WatSAFEapp 
• WatSAFE mobile app 
• The ‘UW Emerge’ on-screen pop-up for desktops and laptops 
• The ‘WatSAFE Desktop Notification’ on-screen pop-up for desktops and laptops (Windows) 
• Portal alerts and push notifications 

Your feedback on how these channels operated, specifically the newly added Portal alerts and push notifications option, is appreciated (helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca or ext. 44357). 

In the event of a real emergency during this test, please contact Police Services at 519-888-4911, or ext. 22222. 

Be sure to install the WatSAFE app on your device to receive this test message, and more importantly, to stay informed of campus emergency situations. Visit the WatSAFE website for more details. 

Further Education Fair today and other notes

The Centre for Career Action (CCA)’s annual Further Education Fair takes place today in the Student Life Centre Great Hall and multi-purpose room. This event takes place from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and will focus on education, health, pharmacy, optometry, social work, college post-degree/certificate programs, MBA, law, engineering/technologies, veterinary and graduate programs. Representatives from more than 90 institutions will interact with students and alumni to answer questions about career options, graduate school admission requirements, program specifics and application procedures and deadlines.

Election season continues with the election of the 2019-2020 University of Waterloo Staff Association Board of Directors. The electronic poll is still open and will remain open until 4:30 p.m. today.

Candidate information, voting instructions, and the online ballots are available on the UWSA website.

The Economics department's annual Economics Distinguished Lecture takes place on Monday, October 28 from 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. in AL 113. Professor Janet Currie of Princeton University will be presenting a public lecture entitled “Child Health as Human Capital”. 

Professor Currie is a pioneer in the economic analysis of child development and its role in the development of social inequalities. Her work has been instrumental in demonstrating the long-term impacts of early life childhood intervention programs, health insurance coverage, and pollution exposure. 

Register on the event landing page for this exciting talk.