Watch above: The Saskatoon Health Region has a new team specialist on board. Meaghan Craig introduces us to the new doctor and finds out why there is a need for a particular focus on adult patients with cystic fibrosis.
SASKATOON – A new hire is the first of its kind for the Saskatoon Health Region’s (SHR) department of internal medicine and will benefit patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). Following a fellowship in Toronto, Dr. Julian Tam, 30, is bringing his expertise in adult cystic fibrosis to the SHR.
CF is considered the most common fatal genetic disease affecting Canadian children and young adults.
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Tam says while it affects various parts of the body, CF is known to cause lung disease and can cause recurrent episodes of lung infections. Some individuals with CF can develop end-stage lung disease eventually requiring lung transplantation, others can be treated for CF with multiple, complex treatments and there is no cure at this point for CF.
“CF still has the potential to cause morbidity and mortality in patients at a young age but with recent advances and research, I think that it brings hope to patients and their care givers both in the present as well as in the future,” said Tam, a respirologist specializing in adult CF from Burlington, Ont.
According to Cystic Fibrosis Canada, CF occurs when a child inherits two abnormal genes, one from each parent. Approximately one in 25 Canadians carry an abnormal version of the gene but it doesn’t necessarily mean a child will be born with CF.
When both parents are carriers, there is a 25 per cent chance the child with be born with CF, a 50 per cent chance the child will be a carrier and a 25 per cent chance the child will be neither a carrier nor have CF.
“We are just thrilled and the CF community too, especially for the adults, to have his expertise and the extra leadership for the clinic because there’s a large number that seen frequently can keep them as well as possible for that cure that is just around the corner,” said Lidington.
It’s estimated one in every 3,600 children born in Canada is born with CF and an estimated 4,000 children, teens and adults attend specialized CF clinics.
“We have only about 70 or so cystic fibrosis patients in the province however they require very specialized care,” said George Pylypchuk, head of medicine for SHR and the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine.
That care has been provided by Tam since early July, time that is protected as part of the provincial Academic Clinical Funding Plan (ACFP).
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“We determined how much teaching we need, how much research we need and how much clinical time we need to look after patients,” added Pylypchuk
“In the past, many of our teachers would be brought in as an academic teacher but they would be so inundated with clinical work that they would not have time enough to do the teaching.”
A workload tug-of-war now over for doctors recruited under the ACFP and signed-off on as an individual service agreement agreed to by the physician.
According to Pylypchuk, Tam is the first hire of this sort for internal medicine and 10 other areas have been short-listed as a priority for the next year.
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