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Thursday, October 7, 2021
By: Namish Modi
Running clinical trials, working with health care professionals and providing patient care make working at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre a unique and memorable experience for students.
A long-time employer of University of Waterloo co-op students, the Odette Cancer Centre (OCC) at Sunnybrook offers opportunities for students to make an impact in vital healthcare research.
Work terms at OCC give students the opportunity to conduct ground-breaking research and present it professionally. Employers empower co-op students to work independently to develop their skills. Students work directly with patients and run clinical trials.
“The OCC is a teaching hospital and offers students the opportunity to gain exposure in both research and clinical skills,” says Dr. Edward Chow, who supervises the co-op students.
“The OCC provides students with the ability to learn hands-on in the radiation clinic with physicians, nurses and radiation therapists. Students also gain a significant amount of clinical exposure by working face-to-face with cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment through their work in clinical trials."
- Dr. Edward Chow, Odette Cancer Centre (OCC)
The OCC empowers co-op students to build clinical skills and conduct ground-breaking research and as a result, they are the recipient of the 2020 Co-operative and Experiential Education (CEE) Employer Impact Award for Impact in Research.
“It is exciting to see Waterloo co-op students making such a difference in the ground-breaking research happening at the
Odette Cancer Centre,” says Anne Fannon, Director of the University of Waterloo’s Work-Learn Institute. “These opportunities to lead research projects, conduct trials and present their findings in academic journals empower our students to pave their future career or academic pathways and make a profound impact in the medical field.”
Dr. Chow makes it his goal to prepare students into excellent researchers and scientists during their work terms and beyond.
“The OCC provides students with the opportunity to build upon a work term,” says Chow. “Many students return for their subsequent co-op term which allows for more responsibility and growth in a professional and academic capacity.”
Empowering students
Each year, Waterloo recognizes Co-op Student of the Year (CSOTY) winners from each faculty for exceptional work terms. Every year since 2005, one of those CSOTY winners worked at Sunnybrook,
and several worked at OCC.
The Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) has recognized many of these students with designations like the Young Investigators Award.
Emily Lam
Health Studies co-op student
Emily Lam, for example, is a 2020 CSOTY winner, 2020 EWO
Co-op Student of the Year Award-Honourable Mention and the MASCC Outstanding Young Investigator award winner in 2020. She has worked at OCC for five of her
co-op terms.
“I think that working in this busy clinic environment gives you a lot of great exposure to all the different skills and also responsibilities that you would have working in a hospital environment,” says Lam. “I think that having a lot of collaboration and teamwork is vital to any workplace, but particularly for someone who works in healthcare.”
Lam has had numerous opportunities to conduct landmark research during her terms at OCC. One of the main tasks for the Health Studies student was studying the impact of pain in patients receiving breast cancer radiation therapy. Lam published a paper in the peer-reviewed journal Supportive Care in Cancer.
“One example of a time where I used a lot of independence was when the cancer centre was approached by two other cancer centres in Ontario because they were interested in joining the clinical trial we started,” says Lam. “I was responsible for independently communicating with the physicians."
- Emily Lam, Health Studies co-op student
Tara Behroozian, the MASCC Outstanding Young Investigator Award winner in 2021, has also had several work terms at OCC. Behroozian, also a Health Studies student, led an observational prospective study on patients’ symptoms during radiation treatment for breast cancer.
The MASCC Outstanding Young Investigator Award goes to the Young Investigator with the highest-ranked abstract. Among the eligible candidates in training or out of training for no more than seven years for the five Young Investigator Awards, they include MD and PhD. Lam and Behroozian captured the MASCC Outstanding Young Investigator Award two years in a row at their young age.
Tara Behroozian
Health Studies co-op student
Published papers
Serving as a mentor to Waterloo students, Dr. Chow allows his students, like Lam and Behroozian, to take the lead on major projects.
“In order to get good results from students, it is important to allow them to take the lead on all stages of a project, from initial brainstorming all the way through to the final delivery, “Dr. Chow says.
Behroozian and Lam helped to put together published papers about patient-reported outcomes and clinical-reported outcomes in radiation therapy. Lam wrote a systematic review and meta-analysis while Behroozian compared clinician and patient outcomes for over 700 patients at the OCC.
“I think that research is something that’s really heavily valued when it comes to medical school application process or professional school applications. To have been able to get this experience presenting at a conference, having manuscripts as a primary author, leading research projects, all of these are very valuable.”
- Tara Behroozian, Health Studies co-op student
Behroozian is now leading several international projects with the oncodermatology study group in MASCC.