
Me2 Majumdar Research and Quality Improvement Collaborative Day
This visit has been funded in part by the Walter Mackenzie Visiting Speaker Fund
This is one of the department's largest events, which highlights graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and residents' research conducted over the past year.
The next Me2 Majumdar Research and Quality Improvement Collaborative Day will take place on Thursday, May 18, 2023.
Abstract Submissions
Abstracts must be submitted on or before April 18, 2023 at 11:59 p.m. Please review the guidelines below before submitting your abstract.
Submit your AbstractKeynote Speakers

Professor Marc Humbert
M.D., Ph.D.
Past President of the European Respiratory Society (ERS), Professor Marc Humbert is Dean of the Université Paris- Saclay Faculty of Medicine. He is the Director of the Inserm Research Unit 999 and of the Department of Respiratory and Intensive Care Medicine, French Pulmonary Hypertension Centre, Hôpital Bicêtre (Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Paris). Marc Humbert was the Chief Editor of the European Respiratory Journal and he is currently Section Editor in charge of Pulmonary Vascular Medicine. He is a Foundation Fellow of the ERS.
He has received several distinctions including the Cournand Lecture Award (ERS), the Descartes-Huygens Award (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences), the Rare Disease Award (Fondation de France), the Award for Lifetime Achievement in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (ERS), the Excellence Award (Fondation du Souffle), and the Council on Cardiopulmonary, Critical Care, Perioperative and Resuscitation Distinguished Achievement Award (American Heart Association). Since 2017, Marc Humbert is the coordinator and vice-coordinator of the French and European Reference Networks for rare and low prevalence respiratory diseases (RespiFIL and ERN-LUNG). Clarivate Analytics lists Marc Humbert as one of the world's highly cited researchers in the field of Clinical Medicine.

Shobhan Thakore
Associate Medical Director for Quality Management, NHS Tayside, Clinical Lead for the Scottish Quality and Safety Fellowship Programme, NHS for Education Scotland
Shobhan Thakore has been an Emergency Medicine Consultant in NHS Tayside since 2003. He spent 8 years as Clinical Lead of the service and is now Associate Medical Director for Quality Management. In this role he helps to redesign and improve services by ensuring improvement science expertise supports operational teams. Part of this role includes leading Realistic Medicine in Tayside in collaboration with a multi-professional clinical team and innovative methods from the design community in Dundee.
He is also Clinical Lead for the Scottish Quality & Safety Fellowship programme which trains clinicians from Scotland, Northern Ireland, Denmark and Norway to become improvement experts. The programme delivers training in technical improvement skills but also leadership skills that help participants understand the importance of team engagement and the psychology of change.
Anyone wishing to contact Shobhan for further information can do so via email shobhan.thakore2@nhs.scot
Faculty Presenters

Jason Weatherald
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine Division of Pulmonary Medicine Lung Transplant & Pulmonary Hypertension, Alberta Health Services
Jason Weatherald is a pulmonologist and Associate Professor at the University of Alberta where he works in the Lung Transplant and Pulmonary Hypertension programs. He completed his undergraduate studies at McGill University, followed by an MD and Internal Medicine residency training at the University of Alberta. He completed his Respiratory Medicine fellowship training at the University of Calgary. He then received a European Respiratory Society long-term research fellowship to study pulmonary vascular diseases under the supervision of Prof. Marc Humbert and Prof Olivier Sitbon in Paris, France from 2016-2017. He completed a Masters of Science in Clinical Trials from the University of London - London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2019.
His research involves risk assessment methods in pulmonary arterial hypertension and patient-oriented research, with a current interest in novel clinical trial design. Recently, he has also co-led multicentre clinical trials related to interventions for COVID-19. He has received research funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, The Lung Association, and the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada. Since 2016, he has authored over 90 publications and has an h-index of 27. He is an Associate Editor at the European Respiratory Journal and at the European Respiratory Review.

Mahesh Kate
Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry - Medicine Dept Neurologist, Alberta Health Services
Mahesh Kate is an Associate Professor with the division of Neurology. His research focuses on secondary stroke prevention with sustainable interventions and improving stroke patients' outcomes by understanding pathophysiological mechanisms.
He co-designed the first study for the Indian Stroke Clinical Trial Network (INSTRuCT). SPRINT INDIA (Secondary Prevention by structured Semi-Interactive Stroke Prevention Package in India) study enrolled 4298 patients in 31 centres. This study was recently published in Lancet Global Health and highlighted the need for education to improve compliance. Currently, with help of the SMART network he is working on the precision and comfortable delivery of remote ischemic conditioning (RIC). In a randomized clinical trial with sham controls, the group is testing the feasibility of a novel tissue reflectance spectroscopy device to understand dermis-epidermis oxygen and hemoglobin concentration during the RIC therapy. Second, he is probing post-endovascular therapy recovery with help of neurophysiological techniques including electroencephalography and functional near-infrared spectroscopy. This observational study will allow insights into novel treatment target “neurovascular coupling” in the post-stroke period. He is developing a Young Stroke Prevention Clinic at Kaye Edmonton Clinic for vascular risk reduction and etiological assessment. This clinic will characterize stroke risk differences with respect to age and sex.
Trainees must be engaged in research within the Department of Medicine or have a supervisor/co-supervisor affiliated with the Department of Medicine as one of the following:
- a graduate student enrolled in a graduate program of study;
- a postdoctoral fellow (post-PhD);
- a post-health professional degree fellow (e.g., core internal medicine resident, senior subspecialty resident, clinical and/or research fellow)
*Please note: Medical students are not eligible and are encouraged to participate in the FoMD research day solely for their category. Research assistants, research associates and research coordinators are also not eligible as they are not considered trainees.
- Oral
- Poster
All trainees are required to submit an abstract via the online abstract submission to be considered for oral and poster presentations. Trainees will be required to select the category associated with their research area:
- scientific; or
- quality improvement and to select the category for which they wish to present:
- oral; or
- poster.
Abstract submissions will be judged by our DoM research intensive members. The top 5 highest scoring abstracts in each category:
- scientific; or
- quality improvement will be invited to present an oral presentation.
The remainder will be invited to post a poster.
Please note: All Abstract submissions will be published in an online abstract booklet.
Guidelines
Please be sure to carefully read the Abstract Submission Guidelines before submitting.
- Clarity and Justification of the Research Question/Hypothesis
- Appropriateness of the Methods Used to Answer the Question/Hypothesis
- Validity and Relevance of the Results to the Question/Hypothesis
- Quality of the Discussion and Conclusion
- Innovation Impact
Oral presentations will take place from 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. (Location TBA)
Each oral presenter will be given 10 minutes to present their research followed by 5 minutes of Q&A from the audience. Scientific oral presentations will be judged by our external guest keynote speaker for 1st place valued at $500.
Please make sure to hang your poster by 9:00 a.m. on May 18, 2023 on the corresponding poster board number provided to you from the DoM Office of Research.
During the public viewing and lunch, between 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. (Location TBA), you are required to stand by your poster. Faculty will come chat and the presenters will need to be by their poster boards, as the winner will be announced at this time based on the score of the abstract. 1st place scientific poster presentation valued at $500. Trainees must be present to receive the prize.
Poster sizes
The poster boards are 4' high and 6' wide, any of the standard size posters that the U of A poster templates will fit on these boards. See poster templates »
- Oral Presentation
- 1st Prize (Scientific): $500
- 1st Prize (Quality Improvement): $500
- Poster Abstract
- 1st Prize (Scientific): $250
- 1st Prize (Quality Improvement): $250