McMaster Family Medicine residents win top national awards

In recognition of their excellence in leadership, commitment to scholarship and advocacy of primary care, four McMaster Family Medicine residents have been honoured with awards presented by the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) and The Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians (CSPCP).

“We celebrate and congratulate our residents for these prestigious achievements,” says Sarah Kinzie, Associate Chair, Education. “It’s inspiring and rewarding to witness their success, and a testament to the engaged preceptors and learning environment that supported them in their work.”

Family Medicine Resident Scholarship

Dr. Edrea Khong receives the Family Medicine Resident Scholarship for years of leadership abilities. Given to outstanding senior family medicine residents, this award selects only one resident from each of the 17 Canadian family medicine residency programs. Edrea Khong’s nomination received broad support from medical directors, staff and many fellow residents.

“For the first-year residents in particular, she was a reliable and candid person to orient, guide, and advocate for us through the turbulent waters of residency training,” say fellow residents.

Khong completed her residency at our Grand Erie Six Nations site in 2022 and is currently practicing full scope family medicine in remote communities. Her locum work in the Northwest Territories, Ontario and Nunavut includes primary care clinics, obstetrics, emergency medicine, hospitalist medicine, long-term care and palliative care

Val Rachlis Leadership in Family Medicine Award

Top scored recipients from the Family Medicine Resident Scholarship help make up the pool of nominations for Val Rachlis Leadership in Family Medicine Award. Edrea Khong receives this award for exemplary leadership and demonstrating outstanding academic, research, communication leadership and recognized as a future leader in family medicine.

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, she sought out the populations that most require urgent medical services and has engaged in additional training to ensure that she would be a medical practitioner that can face the challenges of cultural divisions, socioeconomic difficulties, and resource scarcity alongside her patients and colleagues,” says Amy Montour, Interim Chief & Medical Director of Hospital Based Medicine at Brantford General Hospital. “It has been a true honour to see her Two-Eyed seeing approach to leadership develop.”

Family Medicine Resident Award for Scholarly Achievement

For their outstanding academic accomplishments by family medicine residents, the CFPC awards Dr. Kathryn Cottrell and Dr. Ryan Vamos with the Family Medicine Resident Award for Scholarly Achievement. The research project, which investigated how health-care professionals can use lifestyle interventions to address hypertension, saw promising results and received support from the chair, postgraduate directors and research directors.

Cottrell and Vamos both graduated from our Hamilton site in 2022. Cottrell is currently completing a fellowship in research and scholarship with McMaster DFM, and Vamos is completing a fellowship in sport and exercise medicine at Western University.

The 2022 Palliative Medicine Resident Research Award

Dr. Priya Gupta is the recipient of the 2022 Palliative Medicine Resident Research Award for her research project “Exploring Facilitators to and Barriers in Providing Outpatient Palliative Care to Refugees: A Mixed Methods Study.” Selected by audience vote, this research was recognized to be the best scholarly project by a resident enrolled in a palliative medicine residency program in Canada.

Gupta completed her residency at the University of Toronto in 2021 and a fellowship in palliative care from McMaster University’s Division of Palliative Care in 2022. She is currently working with both the inpatient palliative care consult team at St. Joseph’s in Hamilton and with the Palliative Care Outreach Team in the Hamilton Community.