Every year, one student from each Faculty is presented with a Co-op Student of the Year Award for exceptional contributions to one or more of their work term employers. These awards take place towards the end of the winter term and celebrate student achievements from the winter, spring and fall terms of the previous calendar year. Congratulations to all Co-op Student of the Year Award recipients, including Emily Lam, Faculty of Health's Co-op Student of the Year.
Emily Lam - Health Studies
Lam is a Faculty of Health Co-op Student of the Year award winner for her work during Spring 2020.
Lam’s exemplary accomplishments in important research in the Department of Radiation Oncology earned her this well-deserved recognition. This work term was Lam’s third at Sunnybrook as a clinical research assistant.
During the third-year Health Studies student’s term, she published a paper in the peer-reviewed journal Supportive Care in Cancer, which investigated the impact of pain in over 400 patients receiving breast radiation therapy. Lam’s findings will help provide clinicians with a clearer timeline of pain progression to help improve symptom management during treatment.
“I never expected to be able to write papers and do these things that many doctors and researchers are doing. As an undergraduate I think it's incredible, but also something I would have never imagined,” Lam says, who was interviewed during a shift amid her fourth work term at Sunnybrook.
Co-op Student of the Year is not the only honour Lam has received as she was named one of five recipients of the 2020 Young Investigator Award, presented by the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC). Lam is also a nominee for the 2020 EWO (Education at Work Ontario) 2020 Co-op Student of the Year award.
Lam, says innovation, a critical component of Waterloo’s Future Ready Talent Framework, is an extremely valuable skill pertinent to a career in healthcare.
“For example, in my role, I work closely with patients every day and there’s so many times where unexpected things happen, questions come up, problems come up with clinical trials,” she says. “I think to be able to think quickly and critically to solve the problem in a safe way for patients, and also to be efficient in order to benefit the team that you’re working with, can really make you a valuable member of the organization.”
"It is humbling to know that my work has made some sort of impact in the field, and I think it was also reassuring, and gave me the confidence to continue pursuing a career in healthcare and research."
EMILY LAM | Health Studies