His talk, Circadian rhythms: Molecules, Neurons and Circuits, will take place Wednesday, Oct. 24, from 1:30 to 2:30pm, in the Senate chamber, Ross N920, Keele campus, as part of Gairdner鈥檚 National Program lecture series.

Rosbash of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Biology, Brandeis University, is the 2012 Canada Gairdner Award winner. He鈥檒l delve into the mysteries of how the human body鈥檚 biological clock works. Despite the fact that it鈥檚 been known for centuries that the human body is controlled by a biological clock, it has remained a mystery. Rosbash will look at how this internal clock guides the body through the day.

Michael Rosbash

Circadian clocks are active throughout the body鈥檚 cells, where they use a common genetic mechanism to control the rhythmic activities of various tissues. This is important as circadian clocks affect patterns of sleep and wakefulness, metabolism and the body鈥檚 response to disease. Understanding how the biological clock works has already allowed scientists to pinpoint irregularities in important sleep disorders.

鈥淭he opportunity to learn from the world鈥檚 greatest medical minds is one we hope will inspire students across the country to be imaginers, innovators, and ultimately, cultivators of the future of medicine in Canada and around the world,鈥� said Dr. John Dirks, president and scientific director of Gairdner. 鈥淕airdner鈥檚 National Program is our way of helping to ensure that Canada continues to grow as a global leader in medical science.鈥�

The Gairdner awards are among the world鈥檚 most important biomedical research honours and a major indicator of leading scientific discovery. The Gairdner National Program is a month-long lecture series given by Canada Gairdner Award winners to over 6,000 students at 21 universities from St John's to Vancouver.

The National Program reaches students across the country, making the superstars of science accessible and inspiring the next generation of researchers. Along with the Canada Gairdner Awards, the National Program is part of Gairdner's efforts to promote a stronger culture of research and innovation across the country.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin to research stories on the research website.

The post 91亚色 hosts 2012 Canada Gairdner award-winner appeared first on Research & Innovation.

A critical component of this health-care transformation is the move toward people-centred health that can be powerfully enabled by eHealth information and communication technology (ICT). As Canada faces a looming health-care crisis, today鈥檚 Faculty of Health summit is all about integrating health and health care to ensure accessible and sustainable health services for all.

Left: Faculty of Health Dean Harvey Skinner

Roberto Nu帽o Solin铆s, director of the Basque Institute for Healthcare Innovation, will talk about the problems and solutions of transformation in health care in the Basque Country, Spain. University of Toronto Professor , chief innovator and founder of the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, will bring a global perspective to the discussion, while Daniele Zanotti, chief executive officer of the United Way of 91亚色 Region, will bring the 91亚色 Region perspective.

Right: U of T's Alex Jadad

Harvey Skinner, dean of the Faculty of Health, is co-chair of the summit with Jadad and , who is president of the Canadian Association of People-Centred Health. Skinner will talk about the mission to design and test ways to dramatically improve the capacity to keep more people and their communities healthier, longer.

To do that, he says, it is important to go beyond traditional boundaries in medicine and health care and to work together to create an integrated health system. That means addressing the social determinants of health, prevention and health promotion, as well as providing accessible, quality treatment and rehabilitation when needed.

Left: Co-chair Vaughan Glover

The summit will provide an opportunity for participants to share key learning about what works and what doesn鈥檛 in integrated health systems and an innovative network will be explored for linking academic, clinical, public health, community and private sector partners with potential chronic disease/injury initiatives.

In the second half of the summit, participants will have the opportunity to co-create a roadmap for accelerating innovation in chronic disease prevention and management that will support the design, testing and implementation of integrated systems in the culturally diverse community of the GTA, including 91亚色 Region.

For more information, visit the Rethinking Health website.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

The post Health summit's goal is to transform health care appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Those questions and more are at the heart of , a new collection of essays edited by 91亚色 history Professor Myra Rutherdale published this spring by McGill-Queen鈥檚 University Press.

The book examines the crucial role women have played in health and medicine as nurses and midwives, particularly in the remote geographical areas that dominate Canada鈥檚 landscape. As the book's editor, Rutherdale assembled a national contingent of scholars from nursing, women鈥檚 studies, geography, native studies and history to supply the essays and anecdotes that are contained within its pages. The result is a comprehensive volume that provides insight and understanding into the two centuries of history and courage of the women working on the front lines of health care and medicine in Canada鈥檚 remote communities.

"I was inspired to gather these works together into one collection because I was made aware that there were many scholars working on the history of outpost nursing and midwivery in rural Canada," says Rutherdale. "It struck me that there would be common themes across the country and across the two centuries explored in this book. Most particularly I thought that the perspective of 鈥榯he periphery鈥� would be useful to explore."

"Were these women, especially the trained nurses, acting as agents of the state or in the best interests of agencies like the Red Cross? To what extent were they actually autonomous?" asks Rutherdale. "And, were they merely reinforcing the sometimes racist and social inequities that seemed to be part of many of the federal government schemes?"

Left: Myra Rutherdale

"Did they, for example, work with midwives from northern communities, and how did they respond to medical traditions which were already established in the communities before their arrival? What motivated these women nurses and midwives to take up their work in the first place?"聽notes Rutherdale.聽"Were they just looking for adventure or were they women who wanted to advance in their chosen careers?"

The essays contained in the book also explore themes of religion, colonialism, social divisions and native-newcomer relations. Special attention is paid by Rutherdale to nursing in Aboriginal communities and the relations of race to medical work, particularly in connection to ideas of British ethnicity and conceptualized meanings of whiteness.

Rutherdale聽looks at the experience of nurses in Newfoundland and Labrador, northern Saskatchewan, northern British Columbia and the Arctic. The book features essays on topics such as Mennonite midwives in Western Canada, missionary nurses and Aboriginal nursing assistants in the Yukon.

"There were many interesting submissions and several fascinating stories. The Mennonite midwives explored [in an essay] by University of Waterloo history Professor Marlene Epp were especially interesting since they were so integral to the communities in which they worked. Not only were they midwives but they also worked as undertakers and arranged bodies for funeral rites," says Rutherdale.

Right: A nursing station in Iqaluit

What she discovered in compiling the book was that creativity was a key attribute for the women profiled within Caregiving on the Periphery. "The midwives and nurses who worked on the periphery had to work often alone, or sometimes with just one partner, and they had to work quickly to ensure the survival of their patients," says Rutherdale. "They did not necessarily have the opportunity to consult doctors or to speak with teams. They had to do their best under some harsh circumstances. They had to be skilled and confident in themselves. Nurses were trained 鈥榥ot to diagnose,鈥� but they often found themselves having to do just that, and quickly. They were tested in these communities and had to work hard."

That quality of creativity was also a key element for some of the research that went into the book, says Rutherdale, as there were challenges associated with the fact that some of the nurses, midwives and patients did not leave聽detailed primary source material. "As is evident from this collection, there are some very innovative ways to get around this frustrating lack of evidence," says Rutherdale. She cites an article by Judith Young, professor emerita of nursing at the University of Toronto. "One example of this is the excellent article by Judith Young who researched midwives in 19th-century Toronto. She used directories and land purchase records as well as other official documents to trace the existence of these fascinating midwives 鈥� records that might not be turned to for the questions which she ultimately answered. Sometimes one has to be innovative and creative to find traces of the human past."

Rutherdale also drew on the creativity of her 19-year-old son when she was seeking an appropriate title for the book. "I always find titles rather challenging. I had several titles, most of which were not favoured by family, colleagues or publishers," says Rutherdale. "Finally, I hashed it out with my son who has two parents who are historians so he has heard his fair share about Canadian history throughout his life. He thought Caregiving on the Periphery made a lot of sense given what the authors were trying to highlight in their collective works. And how does one disagree with an opinionated 19-year-old?"

Above:聽Donalda McKillop Copeland with her interpreter and his friends, Southampton Island, early 1950s.聽Rutherdale is researching the experiences of McKillop Copeland.

Rutherdale teaches Canadian history, with a special focus on 20th-century Canada and native-newcomer relations in the Department of History in 91亚色's Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. She also teaches聽courses on the history of the body and Canadian women's history.

Her current research project is on the history of the introduction of westernized medicine into northern Aboriginal communities. "I look at the history of traditional medicine and ask what changes took place when doctors and nurses moved to northern communities to establish nursing stations and small hospitals," she says. "Northern Canada is still woefully under-served in terms of access to health care and there are many inequities that still exist in northern communities. The infant mortality rate is high, and women are still being sent to the south to deliver their children. This is ridiculous in 2010."

Caregiving on the Periphery is available online through , and .

By Jenny Pitt-Clark, YFile editor

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

The post Professor Myra Rutherdale's new book examines women's role in health and medicine appeared first on Research & Innovation.