Episode 002: UofT new faculty round table mini series (Part 1/4)
Guests: Dr. Parul Tandon, Dr. Fernanda Onofrio, Dr. Alexa Sasson, and Dr. Ali Kohansal
SHOW NOTES
Huaqi Li
Thanks so much for tuning in again to Scope Notes, your gastroenterology focused medical education podcast created by learners for learners!
For any new listeners, I’m your co-host Huaqi Li, current first year Internal Medicine resident at the University of Toronto in Canada working together with my co-host Mo Bucheeri, 5th year Gastroenterology fellow and Chief Resident also at the University of Toronto. Our amazing faculty advisor is Dr. Parul Tandon, a Staff Gastroenterologist and Clinician Scientist in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases at the University Health Network/Sinai Health in Toronto.
With Scope Notes, you can look forward to monthly episodes covering all things GI including practice guidelines, research reviews, and special career topics! We’ll be specifically featuring prominent Gastroenterology staff from the University of Toronto and across Canada for their expert opinions. So come join us from your favorite podcast streaming app!
We would like also to extend a huge thank you to the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University of Toronto for their generous support of this podcast.
With all that being said, let’s move on to our episode!
Today will be part 1 of 4 in a very exciting mini-series featuring new faculty in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University of Toronto! We’ll be releasing the next 3 parts over the course of this month! Today, we’re joined by our wonderful podcast supervisor Dr. Parul Tandon himself.
Dr. Tandon, thanks so much for joining us on today's Scope Notes episode. To get us started, could you share with our listeners a bit more about yourself and your training background?
Dr. Parul Tandon
Yeah, no, thanks for having me for this great initiative. Congratulations on the podcast and establishing it, and I'm excited to see what content comes in the near future. So, I'm Parul Tandon. I'm a Gastroenterologist at The University Health Network and Sinai Health. I have a clinical and research interest in inflammatory bowel diseases. My journey has been very interesting, and it was a path that I never expected. I did my medical school at Michigan State University. I finished med school in 2015. And I was lucky enough to complete my Internal Medicine residency at the University of Ottawa from 2015-2018, where I met some of my most important mentors that I've had throughout my journey, particularly Dr. Jeff McCurdy, where I grew interested in GI research and inflammatory bowel diseases research. That sparked my interest, and I applied for Gastroenterology and was lucky enough to return home to Toronto, where I completed my adult Gastroenterology residency from 2018 to 2020 and then, during my gastroenterology residency, met more mentors, networked, and created a close relationship with the Sinai IBD group in Toronto, and was fortunate enough to be accepted to complete an Inflammatory Bowel Diseases fellowship from 2020 to 2022. And along the way, learned that I wanted to do research, I wanted to do important research that would impact patients’ lives, but I didn't have the clinical nor the expertise or knowledge to do high quality research. So I joined the Masters of Epidemiology at the Institute of Public Health Policy and Management at University of Toronto, and then transferred to the PhD, where I completed a PhD in Clinical Epidemiology, looking at health services utilization of women with IBD during pregnancy. And that led me to my journey now, where I've established my practice at the University Health Network.
Huaqi Li
Thanks so much for sharing, I think it’s really interesting to hear about the paths that different people take and the unexpected turns that you might experience. Sounds like mentorship was also a big part of your career so far. You've trained in both Ottawa and Toronto like you mentioned and recently completed the PhD. How have these experiences shaped your career and practice thus far?
Dr. Parul Tandon
If you asked me 15 years ago, you know whether I would have expected to go to Ottawa, return home to Toronto, I would have said, you know, it wasn't part of my plan. You know, my journey took me to the US for medical training. I figured I'd stay in the US. And so what I've learned, visiting different centers, different sites in various parts of my training, is that it's really helped me understand different ways to practice medicine. It's allowed me to experience different aspects of clinical medicine, research medicine, as well as pure epidemiological research from different viewpoints. You know, I've met fantastic mentors. My network has grown significantly, which, you know, I never really appreciated when I was a trainee, but now I appreciate wholeheartedly that, because I trained in a variety of centers, I've created this very strong network, sort of my family, that I can reach out to for clinical advice, life advice, research advice, and also to collaborate on various research projects. So, you know, I think really having the fortunate luck to train in different sites has really allowed me to build my program now at the University of Toronto.
Huaqi Li
Yes, having that family or network like you said is really important, and segues slightly into our next question, but what drew you to working at the University of Toronto, and what have you enjoyed the most so far?
Dr. Parul Tandon
So I know it's cliche, but it was always my dream when I was a little kid to work at the University of Toronto. And I'm lucky enough to be living my dream. But really, you know, the University of Toronto is, you know, obviously a world renowned clinical and research university. It offers so much opportunity. Everything is quote, unquote, in house, right? We have world experts in whatever you can imagine, in whatever field of medicine, whatever field of research, all within the walls of the University of Toronto. So as a junior researcher and junior clinician, the world is right at my doorstep. And, you know, having the ability to work with mentors and senior experts and world-renowned leaders in a variety of fields has allowed me to really understand where my program lacks, where I can count on people that are around me to help enrich that program, to ultimately improve patients’ lives. And I've, you know, I've enjoyed the collegial nature of the University of Toronto. Everybody wants to help each other out. It's a big family. And I think that, you know, you don't find many big centers that function like that. So really, you know, I think that the University of Toronto is a premier place to work. It doesn't feel like work. It feels like this is part of my life. And I think that's what the environment that's cultivated around me by everybody working alongside me.
Huaqi Li
Yeah, I think a lot of us at U of T share the same cliched sentiments. And you mentioned your program a couple of times. Can you tell us a bit more about this specific program you're working on in Toronto?
Dr. Parul Tandon
Yeah, no, for sure. So at the University Health Network, we've developed the Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Clinical and Research Program established September 2023. It's staffed by our senior mentor, Dr. Maria Cino and one of my colleagues, Dr. Alexa Sasson. We provide multidisciplinary inflammatory bowel diseases care to patients at the University Health Network. Work very closely with our colleagues in Dermatology and Rheumatology to provide that care. And then, for my specific research program, I'm very interested in how to deliver culturally appropriate care to those that consider themselves as racial, ethnic minorities and those that are new to our country. So, immigrants, for example. IBD is a chronic disease. It impacts everybody very differently. Everybody lives a story of inflammatory bowel disease, and that story may be different, and there may be more hardships when you travel to a new healthcare setting, a new society where you bring your culture with, your religion with you, and everything is foreign. So, our program aims to improve the delivery of standardized and equitable care to all living with IBD, particularly those of racial, ethnic minorities, as well as those that are immigrating to our country.
Huaqi Li
Thank you. I heard you were working on a recent research project on that as well, I think with Dr. Vivian Huang.
Dr. Parul Tandon
Yeah, specifically Dr. Vivian Huang was one of my mentors, my friend, and my colleague. She's interested in preconception and pregnancy care in inflammatory bowel diseases. And we're looking at, you know, how to provide adequate care from a GI perspective during pregnancy to a variety of different cultures, because we know that, especially during a high risk period, a very vulnerable period like pregnancy, people want their healthcare providers to recognize cultural differences, provide culturally appropriate care, and we're trying to understand that from a patient perspective, so we can improve how we deliver care to our patients.
Huaqi Li
Yes, very interesting, for sure. And we talked a bit about the current status of your program, but where do you see your program in the next five years?
Dr. Parul Tandon
Yeah, no, thank you. So, in the next five years, I think I'm hoping we've made headway in determining where the deficiencies are in the current way we deliver care to our patients. And the hope is that we have a dedicated program that aims to provide that equitable, culturally appropriate care to different racial and ethnic minorities. The one that I'm interested in is, to begin with, is providing care to South Asian people living with inflammatory bowel diseases, where we see IBD exponentially rising in those populations. And so, for example, I hope that we can establish a program where we provide care to South Asians living with IBD, perhaps in their own language, perhaps with people they want to connect with. And so that's where I see our current research improving care, hopefully within the next five to 10 years.
Huaqi Li
I think that's really important, not to be biased as an immigrant myself, and to end off do you have any advice for our listeners who are hoping to pursue Gastroenterology and/or IBD?
Dr. Parul Tandon
Yeah, no. I think my advice is be flexible. A lot of doors will open. We just need to walk through those doors. And sometimes we tunnel vision into our dreams and that this is where we want to work, this is what we want to practice, and this is what field you know we wish to see ourselves in. But sometimes you know life has different plans, it was those doors that I never planned to walk through that really led to who I am today as a person, as a clinician, as a researcher. So my number one advice to people is be flexible. Be flexible to experience new environments, new mentors, new networks, because you never know what door will lead you to your final destination. Which friends you'll make along the way, which colleagues will stick with you, which mentors will, you know, shape your career. So be flexible. Be ready to go where your path takes you. And that path will never be what you expect it to be, but that path, you'll look back and you'll consider yourself lucky to have walked that journey.
Huaqi Li
Thank you so much Dr. Tandon for a very engaging conversation. That’s it for our episode today! Thanks so much to our listeners for tuning in, join us again next week for part 2 of our new faculty mini-series!
Follow us on social media for the latest updates @scopenotesGI on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram! If you have any feedback or just want to say hi, you can reach the team at scopenotesGI@gmail.com. And check out our website at www.scopenotesGI.com!
