The CIHR-ICRH/CAEP Mid-Career Lecturer Award in Emergency Medicine

Dr. Kerstin de Wit – Recipient of the 2024 CIHR-ICRH/CAEP Mid-Career Lecturer Award in Emergency Medicine

Kerstin de Wit qualified in Medicine in the University of Edinburgh, followed by residencies in Internal Medicine and Emergency Medicine in the United Kingdom. She completed a doctorate degree in medical research with the University of Manchester, followed by an MSc in epidemiology with the University of Ottawa. Dr de Wit completed a 3-year clinical research fellowship in Thrombosis Medicine in Ottawa and has been working clinically as a staff emergency physician and thrombosis physician in Canada since 2014.

Dr de Wit was Assistant Professor with the Department of Medicine in McMaster University for 6 years. Since 2020 she has been an Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine in Queen’s University. She leads a program of research focused on three main areas: diagnosis of intracranial bleeding in older adults, diagnosis of traumatic brain injury in anticoagulated head injured patients and diagnosis of pulmonary embolism. She is highly recognized for the development of innovative testing pathways which are simple to implement, translating easily into improved physician compliance and high-quality patient experience. Dr de Wit has held five CIHR project grants as the principal applicant totaling $6.2 million and has over 150 peer reviewed publications.

Dr de Wit supervises graduate student, medical student and undergraduate student research. She is the Queen’s University Clinician Investigator Program Director and the vice-chair of the Royal College of Physicians Adult Thrombosis Committee. She chairs the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians Research Committee and the International Society of Thrombosis and Haemostasis Scientific Standardization Committee. Dr de Wit is an invited plenary speaker at scientific meetings internationally.

Dr. Steven C. Brooks – Recipient of the 2023 CIHR-ICRH/CAEP Mid-Career Lecturer Award in Emergency Medicine

Dr. Brooks is a Clinician-Scientist in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Queen’s University. After graduating from Queen’s School of Medicine in 2001, Dr. Brooks completed a Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada residency in emergency medicine and Master’s of Health Sciences degree at the University of British Columbia. He then moved to the University of Toronto where he completed a fellowship in prehospital and transport medicine.

Dr. Brooks’ academic focus is cardiac arrest and resuscitation. He conducts studies on innovative technologies and strategies designed to increase bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation and improve access to early defibrillation. Dr. Brooks is a member of the Resuscitation Advisory Committee of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and the Immediate Past Chair of the Science Subcommittee within the American Heart Association Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee. He has been involved in the development of international emergency cardiovascular care guidelines for the last 20 years. Dr. Brooks is the Chief Medical Officer for Rapid Response Revival. This company manufactures the CellAED which is the world’s first miniaturized, single-use automated external defibrillator designed for personal access and household deployment.

Dr. Clare Atzema – Recipient of the 2022 CIHR-ICRH/CAEP Mid-Career Lecturer Award in Emergency Medicine

Dr. Atzema is a Staff Emergency Physician at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, a Senior Scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute (SRI) and ICES, and the Research Program Director for SRI's Integrated Community Program. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto and a Decision Editor at Annals of Emergency Medicine. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed publications, primarily on care of cardiovascular disease within the emergency setting and transfer of care back to longitudinal care providers. Her primary focus is on atrial fibrillation (AF), with a secondary focus on hypertension and heart failure. As a member of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society’s (CCS) Primary AF Panel she has contributed to the CCS AF Guideline documents since 2014, and she has been a member of the CAEP AF checklist committee since its inception in 2017.

Dr. Venkatesh Thiruganasambandamoorthy – Recipient of the 2020 CIHR-ICRH/CAEP Mid-Career Lecturer Award in Emergency Medicine

Dr. Venkatesh Thiruganasambandamoorthy (‘Venk’) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and the School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa; emergency physician at The Ottawa Hospital; and a Scientist with the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. He is internationally recognized for his research on emergency department syncope. He is recipient of several peer reviewed grants from Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (HSFC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH). He also has won several excellence awards including National New Investigator Award from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. He is a co-author in several national and international guidelines and consensus/position statements for syncope. His other research interests include emergency department chest pain management, health systems research and machine learning.