Celebrating the South Asian community at Temerty Medicine

This spring’s Temerty Medicine Community Connection (TMCC) event will centre the experiences of South Asian community members at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and partner hospitals.

The Power of Persistence: Finding Joy in the Journey will take place in person on Tuesday, May 27, on the University of Toronto’s St. George campus.

“South Asian identity is diverse in culture and heritage, but many of us share similar challenges during our professional training,” says Aisha Husain, member of the TMCC South Asian Working Group and co-host for the evening.

“It’s important to have safe spaces to discuss these challenges while cultivating an environment that allows interaction with receptive South Asian leaders, to share how they navigated these issues but also to inspire professional excellence and celebrate the vibrant mosaic of our South Asian heritage and culture,” says Husain, an assistant professor in the department of family and community medicine (DFCM) at Temerty.

The event will be co-hosted by MD Program student Vidhi Bhatt, a co-lead of the South Asian Medical Student Association (SAMSA).

Attendees will have the opportunity to connect with and hear from learners, staff and faculty from across Temerty Medicine.

Sunit Das, professor and Keenan Chair in the department of surgery, will deliver the keynote address sharing about his personal and professional journey from English literature undergraduate at the University of Michigan to neurosurgeon and scientist at Unity Health Toronto and The Hospital for Sick Children.

A panel discussion, moderated by MD student and SAMSA co-lead Gayashan Tennakoon, will include learners and faculty with clinical and research[1]  backgrounds.

Naheed Dosani, assistant professor in DFCM, is a palliative care physician and health justice activist dedicated to advancing equitable access to health care for people experiencing poverty, homelessness and related challenges.

Vathany Kulasingam, associate professor in laboratory medicine and pathobiology, is division head of clinical biochemistry at University Health Network. She is a clinician-investigator at Princess Margaret Cancer Care Centre and the co-director of the Postdoctoral Training Program in Clinical Chemistry at the University of Toronto.

Gurpreet Mand is a community family physician and the faculty development lead for the Schulich Family Medicine Teaching Unit at Humber River Health. An assistant professor at the department of family and community medicine, she is also co-course director for ESSENCE, a faculty development course offered through the office of education scholarship.

Samra Zafar is an award-winning international speaker, bestselling author, and psychiatry resident at Mount Sinai Hospital. She is the author of A Good Wife: Escaping the Life I Never Chose and Unconditional: Break Through Past Limits to Transform Your Future.

TMCC is a community support and engagement series developed by community and for community, which aims to create safer spaces for participants to connect with each other and build culturally relevant networks and supports within Temerty Medicine.

Since 2022 TMCC events have supported members from the LatinX and Caribbean community, trans and gender-diverse community, Muslim community, East Asian community, and Southeast Asian community. “The Power of Persistence” is the sixth event in the series.

The University of Toronto Anti-Asian Racism Working Group Final Report emphasizes the importance of creating ongoing opportunities to establish safe and supportive spaces for the Asian community at the University of Toronto. In addition, sociodemographic data from the Voices Surveys and feedback from community members has highlighted the need for events that respect and reflect the diverse and intersectional identities within Asian communities.

“In our office’s engagements with Asian faculty, learners and staff, we heard very clearly that a pan-Asian approach to community supports and programming is not effective,” says Saba Khan, manager in the office of inclusion and diversity, which coordinates the TMCC events.  “Through the TMCC series, we recognize the need for events that respect and reflect the diverse and intersectional identities within and between Asian communities,” says Khan.

TMCC gatherings also offer an opportunity to share data from surveys relating to experiences in learning and work environments directly with the community. David Rojas, director of program evaluation in the office of assessment and evaluation, MD Program, will present data from the 2023 Voices Surveys (MD students, residents and clinical fellows), and new data from the 2022-23 Graduate Supervisory Experience Survey will also be shared.

The event will run Tuesday, May 27, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:15 p.m, in person at William Doo Auditorium, 45 Wilcox Street, Toronto.