By: Kirsten Millar
Dr. Melissa Andrew is a geriatrician at Nova Scotia Health, who is leading the way in research as the Research Director of the Department of Medicine at Dalhousie University. Dr. Andrew’s team of researchers, clinicians, and patients are, together, making great strides in investigating models of care in long-term care facilities, frailty, vaccine effectiveness, and outcomes of vaccine-preventable illness and COVID-19.
Nova Scotia Health created a program called the Making Waves awards in order to recognize and celebrate outstanding efforts, such as Dr. Andrew’s.
Dr. Andrew is the recipient of the 2022 Making Waves: Outstanding Researcher Award. This award recognizes a researcher who has made an outstanding contribution to research at Nova Scotia Health.
Tell us a bit about yourself; what you do, where you are located, and your favourite part about it?
“I work in geriatric medicine and we are located in the central zone at the Camp Hill Veterans Memorial Building. We have a real privilege of working in all kinds of different environments, including other hospitals in Dartmouth, through the QEII and consulting in clinics. Also going on home visits – I get to see people in their own home environments, which is a really important part of who they are, and a privilege. I think it also impacts my research – thinking about how the social environments that people live in affect their outcomes.
So, what I really liked about geriatrics, my favorite part, is probably the holistic focus about trying to optimize people's health and quality of life. Even if you can't cure something, or fix something, or make it go away, you can always try to make it better and focus on the whole person as opposed to one system or part of them.”
How do you feel your work contributes to the health and wellbeing of Nova Scotians? Why is it important?
“In Nova Scotia, we're really fortunate that we have an aging population. I see that as a positive, because we're helping people to live longer, and overall, hopefully healthier and more functional lives. That makes Nova Scotia a really great place to be doing work and research that looks at how to improve health and health outcomes for older people.
I see that a lot of the research that I do is sort of translational. Moving what we know about frailty and how to understand it on a physiological, mathematical and theoretical level into other fields where maybe traditionally it hasn't been thought about. For me, that has involved applying it to infectious diseases and vaccines and vaccine responses.
That got into working in COVID-19 during the pandemic. And led, in fact, to me becoming a member of the of NACI (National Advisory Committee on Immunization), which was and is a real honor for me to be able to contribute to vaccine guidance and policy in that way, and bring this geriatrics lens, which is new for them. They hadn't previously had a geriatrician, but as we know, older people are disproportionately affected by infections and really stand to benefit from vaccines and prevention and treatments.
The other main areas that I work in are around cognition and dementia. This involves thinking about how the whole person and their social context influences the risk of developing dementia, and their experience living with it and how to best provide support through that journey.
Other collaborations that I am involved in include working with colleagues in primary care at Nova Scotia Health. Also, I use social gerontology to improve models of care for older people, whether it’s primary care with the issue of unattached patients or improving models of care in long-term care and learning from COVID-19 in both settings.
That's where I'm trying to make a difference. To work from observations that I have as a clinician and as a human living in Nova Scotia and trying to apply these ideas like frailty in the social context to those bigger issues, to try to make things better.”
What does it mean to you to receive the Outstanding Researcher Award?
“I was honestly really surprised and I'm very honoured. I didn't know that I had been nominated and I had an attack of imposter syndrome especially because I know that there's so much great health research happening here in Nova Scotia. I look up to the many people I work with and have worked in larger teams on all those projects mentioned earlier. I'm a part of the Department of Medicine here in Nova Scotia Health and Dalhousie University, which is a very supportive environment. There are so many great researchers there. I couldn't do the work that I do without the support of all these colleagues and collaborators.”
As this year’s recipients of the Outstanding Researcher Award, how do you hope to inspire others who are working to make a difference in the lives of Nova Scotians each day?
“What I really value and love to do in the research work is to work with trainees and just be inspired by them and their ideas and give them some mentorship in their career development.
I just hope that we can be inspired to keep at it. I know that research and certainly clinical care is not an easy road, there are always challenges. But I have really appreciated being able to see how discoveries made in the course of doing research can make a difference in clinical care and also policy at the bigger picture level.
I hope that that other people who are engaged in research or interested in doing research can see that if you pick a problem that matters to you on a clinical or societal level, and then work toward making beneficial changes in care and policy, then that's something that can be very rewarding and can help to benefit our society as a whole.”
Congratulations to Dr. Andrew on receiving the 2022 Making Waves: Outstanding Researcher Award. Dr. Andrew’s various research is helping to find ways for Nova Scotia’s senior population to live healthier and longer lives.
