Congrats to the MHSc in Medical Physiology Class of 2022
Congratulations to Physiology’s second cohort of our Professional Master’s program – the MHSc in Medical Physiology – who convocated on November 8th. We couldn’t be more pleased with how our program is going and growing, and the accomplishments of our alum so far.
Second Cohort Highlights
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The 2022 cohort was the first to test-drive the Physiology Meets Business mentorship program, and their feedback allowed us to grow and strengthen the program for our current group of students.
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Two students have submitted their literature reviews for publication, under the mentorship of Dr. Zhong-Ping Feng. Dr. Feng is confident that their work will be published, joining the two students who published their reviews last year, and alum Natalie Mercuri whose work with Dr. Brian Cox was just accepted by eLife this month. We are finding this aspect of the program to benefit students and mentors alike, with high quality work consistently emerging from these collaborations.
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Students continued to thrive in their summer placements, receiving rave reviews from their supervisors. Brian Lynch, COO of HeroAI – who hired two of our students for placements – explained the value of our students’ skill sets to his organization:
As an AI company working in the medical space, one of the biggest challenges we face is helping our partner healthcare practitioners understand how technology can be used to improve their ability to provide care.
In order to bridge this gap, you need translators that can appreciate the nuances of medical care, while having the technical know-how to see solutions and put them on paper for a development team. We were thrilled with the results we saw from the MHSc students.
Where Are They Now?
This new group of alum have taken on a variety of new challenges. Riley Pontello continues to work part-time at Neurofit – the start-up where he did his placement, and has also embarked on a degree in nursing. “I think Dr. Miliotis did a good job of finding placements that require you to use the skills you get from the program. I used them all throughout the summer – even if coding wasn’t my favourite, it was a useful skill to have learned. Now that I’m in a paid role, I am doing a lot of science writing as well as giving presentations, which are transferable skills I developed in the program as well.”
Pontello also felt the program gave him a broader perspective for his future career. “I like being able to engage both the caring, clinical side of myself in nursing, but also my professionalism and business skills at Neurofit. I think both will be part of my path for the next couple of years.”
Melissa Misztal, who now works as a clinical research project assistant in the Division of Rheumatology at SickKids, explained that “the MHSc program helped develop my coding skills, which translated to my current role where I analyze clinical and genetic data in R. Learning about a broad range of patient cases in the Clinical Physiology course has also translated to my role at SickKids in that it helps me better understand the data I am analyzing.”
Other graduates have gone on to MD programs, continue to work for their placement organizations, or attained roles in industry. The Department is thrilled to see how well the program is meeting the emergent needs of the healthcare sector.
If your organization would like to hire one of our talented MHSc students for their placement in the summer, feel free to submit a posting or contact us for more details.
We are also accepting applications for the September 2023 cohort. Click here if you are ready to apply!