The Women’s Health Research Foundation of Canada Inc., (WHRFC), has had another very successful year. A healthy activity fundraiser, Dance For Your Health 2019 (DFYH 2019) was held at the Masonic Centre 420 Corydon Avenue on Thursday March 7, 2019. The evening was a St. Paddy’s Day Party featuring Irish Step Dancing by the McConnell School of Dance and an Irish-themed Buffet provided by WOW Catering. Chrissy Troy of 103.1 Virgin Radio brought her lively sense of fun to the evening as MC. Our Past-President Dr. Lynn Scruby welcomed everyone and moderated our award winners’ 3-minute presentations. Two of our three 2018-2019 full-time graduate student scholarship winners Janelle Boram Lee and Lindsey Mazur, plus part-time graduate scholarship winner Kerry Dust impressed everyone with their presentations of their research projects. The Dancers from the McConnell School of Dance wowed everyone with their lively, enthusiastic step dances followed by an instruction session where guests joined them to try some Irish dance steps. Over fifteen guests took home door or raffle prizes. DFYH 2019 together with our Target Mail Campaign, Corporate Campaign and a bequest brought in over $17,000 to support women’s health research.
Janelle Boram Lee an MSc student in Community Health Sciences (supervisors: Dr. Marni Brownell and Dr. Nathan Nickel), told us about her project “Maternal justice involvement and childhood outcomes of child protective services and maltreatment indicators in Manitoba”. Lindsey Mazur, an MSc student in Community Health Sciences (supervisor: Dr. Deborah McPhail), spoke about her project “Experiences of stigma in prenatal/postnatal dietetic care among women with high BMI”. Kerry Dust our part-time award winner and a PhD student in Medical Microbiology, (supervisor: Dr. Alberto Severini), spoke about “The significance of HPV E6 PDZ binding domain on transformation of primary human neonatal keratinocytes”. Full-time award winner Abin Chandrakumar, his project on “Maternal antibiotic use during pregnancy and childhood chronic diseases”, was unable to attend.
The annual Manitoba School Science Symposium (MSSS) was held in the last weekend of April 2018 at the University of Manitoba. The WHRFC provided awards at three of the four grade levels, all to commend and encourage young scientists in Manitoba whose projects related to women’s health.
A WHRFC award for the best women’s health research project was presented by our Secretary Donna Chow at the Canadian National Medical Student Research Symposium, a national poster competition held annually by the Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba. The 2018 winner was Shirley Giroux, PhD student (University of Northern BC). Her project, “Resilience in teacher/mothers; Parsing the intersections of family, work and wellness”.