Ninety-six students from across the world attend Rehabilitation Colloquium online

| 4 June 2021 | 171 views

Ninety-six students and faculty from universities across Canada and international institutions attended the Rehabilitation Colloquium, Resilience in Rehabilitation on May 11-12, 2021. There are long histories of a student-run rehabilitation colloquium at each of Queen's and McGill. The 2021 iteration was, however, both the first virtual rehabilitation colloquium and the first one collaboratively organized by Queen’s University and McGill University. The event hosted many new features including 13 virtual poster presentations and 24 virtual podium presentations. Reflecting the conference theme of resilience, in separate opening remarks Dr. Marcia Finlayson, Director of Queen’s School of Rehabilitation Therapy, and Dr. Isabelle Gélinas, Director of Graduate Program and Certificate Programs at the McGill's School of Physical & Occupational Therapy, congratulated students on their continued determination and efforts over the past pandemic-influenced year. Closing remarks by faculty organizers, Ms. Sarah Marshall (McGill) and Dr. Kathleen Norman (Queen’s) reflected on the conceptual breadth of the two-day conference.

Inspiring researchers and current post-doctoral trainees, the keynote speakers Dr. Linna Tam-Seto (Queen’s) and Dr. Navaldeep Kaur (previously McGill, now University of Toronto) spoke about resilience in their personal and professional lives as well as the resilience seen amongst patient populations. The theme of resilience continued to be reflected in the student presentations, both podium and poster, in an event that highlighted the incredible and diverse research of students in rehabilitation science and related programs across the country.

Rebecca Ataman and April Christiansen won the People’s Choice Awards for best podium presentations (one for each day of the colloquium) on the topics of Understanding how newly implemented rehabilitation best practices are sustained” and “Art based Rehabilitation Therapy (ART) for Sensorimotor Recovery Post Stroke,” respectively. In an unexpected tie, Rose Elekanachi and Prateek Gupta won the faculty-judged poster presentations titled “Policies on childhood disabilities in Nigeria: A policy review” and “Mass Media and Physical Activity Promotion in Adults”, respectively.

Thank you to our volunteer faculty judges for all their efforts! We also would like to thank the faculty organizers, and our sponsors, from Queen’s University – both the School of Rehabilitation Therapy and the Faculty of Health Sciences – and from McGill University's School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, for all of their support! This event would not have been possible without you!

A video of keynote speaker Dr. Linna Tam-Seto’s presentation, the posters and the colloquium program continue to be available at event.fourwaves.com/rehabcolloquium

The Rehabilitation Colloquium Committee

School of Rehabilitation Therapy