UHN Women's Health Program Newsletter

Atousa Assadi

Atousa Assadi worked with Dr. Azadeh Yadollahi on a project evaluating sex differences in the effect of opioids on respiration. Her overall research program focuses on risk assessment and prediction of opioid-induced respiratory adverse events. Her research goal is to develop personalized techniques based on signal processing and machine learning methodologies for improving patient care.

Shaghayegh Chavoshian

Shaghayegh Chavoshian worked with Dr. Azadeh Yadollahi on a project evaluating obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in women with asthma. Although the prevalence of OSA is lower in women than men in the general population, among people with asthma, the prevalence of OSA is two times higher in women than men, and outcomes after hospitalization for asthma and OSA are worse in women than men. This project aims to study the pathophysiology of detrimental interactions between asthma and OSA in women.

Yajur Iyengar

Yajur Iyengar worked with Dr. Esther Bui to investigate the obstetrical and neurological outcomes of pregnant women with epilepsy. He also worked to implement and design a shared decision-making web tool that aims to aid the delivery of Women's Health Evidence-Based Neurology.

Mohitt Khinda

Mohitt Khinda worked with Bryanna Nyhof and Catherine Wang from UHNWomen and Drs. Paula Rowland and Cynthia Whitehead from the Wilson Centre to evaluate how flexible work schedules in surgical settings affect workplace satisfaction, retention, and employment of female healthcare workers. The project aimed to understand the difficulties women face when entering the surgical field, and to evaluate how institutional changes, such as flexible work schedules, and encourage women to enter a surgical field.

Bronwen O'Callaghan

Bronwen O'Callaghan worked with Bryanna Nyhof and Catherine Wang from UHNWomen and Drs. Paula Rowland and Cynthia Whitehead from the Wilson Centre on a project that involved retrieving evidence from current literature on how to implement successful gender equity initiatives and how to measure current and future program successes. The research will be used to help support UHNWomen’s operations during the initial stages of launching their multi-year strategic plan.

Nikola Pucnin

Nikola Pucnin worked with Dr. Valeria Rac on a scoping literature review on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of those who identify as women of lower socioeconomic status and are diagnosed with diabetes. He created a full review protocol including article screening and data extraction forms, developed a robust search strategy within the Ovid databases and grey literature sources, and screened the results from the database search at the title/abstract and full-text levels.

The Girls SySTEM Mentorship Program is a non-profit organization connecting students in late elementary and high school with passionate and knowledgeable professionals in STEM fields. The goal of the program is to provide young women (ages 12-18) with early experiential learning, workshops, and hands-on mentorship across a spectrum of STEM professions in order to fuel their interests and passions throughout their academic careers. In order to achieve this, we rely on the help of our mentors who are eager to nurture female innovators towards professional development and diversify the landscape of the STEM workforce.

The applications to become a mentor for the coming year are open September 7th, 2022. and are available here. You can sign up to be a mentor for the Fall (September-December), Winter (January-April), or Full-Year (September-April) cohort. These applications will close on September 23rd, 2022. As a mentor, you would be committing to a maximum of 2 hours/month.

If you apply for the program, you will be paired with the mentee that we see most fitting based on shared academic interests and goals, hobbies, and overall compatibility. If you are interested in joining, more information can be found here. Please feel free to reach out to toronto@girlsystemmentorship.com with any questions.