Sudbury's Health Sciences North and the Health Science North Research Institute (HSNRI) showcased local health-care research efforts Thursday evening at the 2025 Catalyst event.
The event brought together health-care professionals, researchers and members of the public “to highlight how groundbreaking research is transforming patient care” in the region, a press release about the event states.
Held at the Vale Cavern at Science North, the event follows a recent announcement by the HSN Foundation to contribute $300,000 in research funding to support no less than nine innovative projects led by HSNRI.
Roughly a dozen research display stations were set up in the cavern where the researchers were able to meet with individual audience members to explain the scope of their work.
Catherine Copley, the lead for the 2025 Catalyst event, told Sudbury.com medical research is essential to helping professional caregivers know what is important to their patients.
"It is our second annual event, and the goal is to raise awareness of the incredible, impactful, innovative, inspirational research going on in Northern Ontario to improve the lives of patients in Northern Ontario,” Copley said.
One of the display stations that garnered attention highlighted the research of Dr. Kristen Morin and Dr. Tara Leary. They are doing research into the specialized programs and services to treat addictions while at the same time treating whatever other medical or surgical needs a patient might have. It could be cancer care, cardio care or even a broken leg.
"And we're lucky at Health Sciences North, because we offer a variety of services, both inpatient and outpatient, but our inpatient services are particularly novel,” Leary said. “We were the first to open a specialized inpatient unit for folks in hospital with whatever medical or surgical diagnosis, who also had a substance use disorder.
"We have concentrated addictions expertise so that we can address their medical or their surgical or their psychiatric diagnosis, but we can also address the co-occurring addiction.”
For her part, Morin said medical or surgical patients are interviewed and treatment can be planned for those who have an addiction disorder. She said it was discovered that patients welcome that approach.
"And what we did find was that people are more comfortable coming to the hospital now that they have these specialized addiction services in place because this population sometimes will avoid getting care when they need it," said Morin.
She said people with addictions who are in the hospital for other reasons are encouraged to get care for their addictions problem.
Morin said patients like the idea of peer support from other people who have lived experiences. She said patient interviews and feedback showed that this was regarded as a positive thing.
Leary quoted comments from one of the patients in a recorded anonymous interview.
"I just appreciate the support and care that comes from the people that know that it's not easy being a drug addict and think that there's still a chance for some of us. I can mess up and be honest about it, and they'll still accept me," said the patient.
Morin said the research is paying off in the sense that she and Leary are able to publish their findings in science journals and make public presentations to other researchers. She said the hope is to be able to convince policy makers and people in key decision making roles that the consolidated and holistic approach is worthwhile.
Event lead Copley said highlighting the unique research being done in Northern Ontario is important because the medical needs in this part of the province are different from the south, and it’s important for the public and for decision-makers to understand those differences.
"Northern Ontario has very different needs than the rest of the province,” Copley said. “We have more rural and remote communities. We have more telehealth going on. And a lot of research that is done on Ontario populations is centered in large urban centers in Southern Ontario.
"So for example, one of our research chairs in cancer is looking at the cost of cancer on the personal level, specifically in Northern Ontario. She knew there was research going on about the cost of cancer in Ontario broadly, but none of it covered the Northern Ontario population.”
She said it is important for researchers to learn more about how their patients respond to medical care and how well the medical community is responding to the needs of patients.
Len Gillis covers health care and mining for Sudbury.com.