Over the past five years, Dr. Sheina Macadam has been conducting a research study funded by the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation (CBCF). This project, entitled “Quality of life and patient-reported outcomes of reconstruction in breast cancer survivors,” was awarded a $115,000 grant from the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation in 2010. In 2012, Dr. Macadam was also the recipient of the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute’s Mentored Clinician Scientist Award, which also helped to fund this study.
This comprehensive project took place across North America, and involved participation and coordination among 5 leading research facilities: the University of British Columbia (UBC), University of Toronto (UofT), Dartmouth University, New York University (NYU), and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre. The scope and scale of this multi-centre project meant Dr. Macadam was responsible for coordinating researchers and tasks at all 5 centres.
Dr. Macadam’s roles as a leader on this project were many, and included designing the research study, obtaining ethics approval from the 5 participating sites’ research ethics boards, distributing study questionnaires, compiling the data with an employed statistician, and writing the manuscript. This 5-year project involved a tremendous amount of effort, and has now culminated in the exciting submission of the final manuscript for publication in the prestigious journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Let’s all cross our fingers for Dr. Macadam and the entire research team for publication of this important work!