Good Tuesday morning,
I hope those who could take the long weekend enjoyed time with family and friends
and for those who were here caring for patients, my thanks for your taking on the assignment. The day after Labour Day each September always feels to me like the start of the year, whatever the calendar says. Students go back to school, or start their studies. For UHN, that means both the University of Toronto and Michener welcoming their students and helping get everyone accustomed to student life.
And, if you went to the movies at a Cineplex Theatre this weekend you must have been very pleasantly surprised to see our Transplant Program featuring our patients, staff, physicians and leadership appearing on the big screen before the feature film.
Scotiabank and Cineplex have partnered with us to create a number of 60-second Public Service Announcements (PSAs) to be shown before the feature film in Cineplex theatres from August 31 to September 27. That is an astonishing gift of profile for the Transplant Program and my thanks to
Megan Porter for her vision and leadership in creating this opportunity for the
LIVE ON Campaign which supports our Transplant Program. Megan has been essential to the campaign's success and thanks are also due to
Jack Bensimon and the team at
Bensimon Byrne who have been part of the thinking from the beginning of the campaign. The clips are from
Barry Avrich's award-winning documentary
Be Amazed! which premiered last year at the UHN Transplant Evening: Be Amazed! This work – appearing on 1,371 Cineplex screens across Canada throughout September -- will raise awareness of transplantation, organ donation, the Transplant Program at Toronto General Hospital and encourage audiences to make a financial donation to the LIVE ON campaign through a text-to-donate call to action at the end of each PSA. We couldn't have had this opportunity without our patients, our staff, our physicians, Scotiabank, Cineplex Odeon, Barry Avrich and Megan Porter.
As you've likely been seeing in the media, it has been an anxious time for our Saudi trainees but recent news has given some stability and a bit of breathing room while we think about the future.
It is clear that all provincial governments, universities and academic hospitals will need to re-examine this reliance on foreign trainees and determine how we can afford the loss of these trainees and the associated clinical, academic and financial impact in the future.
Last week we received a notification from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care about the risks of one particular form of cyberattack and the need to ensure that all hospitals were up to date in applying 'patches' to their digital security when firms issue the patches. UHN Digital applies patches whenever we get a notification, but, it does give me the opportunity to link to
this story from last week about cyber security.
Security of our systems is up to everyone on Team UHN!
Have a good week,
Kevin
