Residents win award

Medical residents win national award

By Laurie Wang

The Canadian Association of Professors of Medicine and the Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation (CAPM-CSCI) have recognized Faculty of Medicine internal medicine residents Dr. Sayeh Minoosepehr and Dr. Laura Stinton for their outstanding core medicine research this year.

They were the only two in Canada to receive the Core Medical Residents Research Award. 

“It’s certainly very humbling because all the other research presentations were fantastic. It was unexpected, that’s for sure,” says Minoosepehr, a third-year resident. The 31-year-old is a chief resident in internal medicine at the U of C.

Both Minoosepehr and Stinton were invited to Winnipeg last month to compete with six other medical residents from across the country.

“It’s very exciting for me, and it says a lot about the program here,” Stinton says. A U of C medicine graduate herself, Stinton, 27, is in her second year of residence in internal medicine.

Stinton and her team studied autoantibodies in lupus nephritis patients requiring kidney transplantation.

Minoosepehr and her colleagues studied BNP, a chemical used to measure if someone has heart failure. 

 “Our research looked at the cost effectiveness of having access to BNP as a diagnostic tool. The results show that indeed, measuring BNP is more cost efficient. As well, patients with a low measurement of BNP can be safely discharged,” said Minoosepehr.