November 9th, 2016 -- On Thursday, October 27, 2016 at 6:00 pm a number of individuals gathered at the large auditorium in the Ted Rogers Building (Faculty of Management), Ryerson University, Toronto Ontario Canada, to witness the University’s honouring of one of its former tenured faculty members and former Director of the School of Health Services Management with “ The Inaugural Winston Isaac Lecture in Healthcare Services”.
The notice of the event, said in part, “This is an inaugural Winston Isaac lecture in Healthcare Services Management recognizing Dr. Isaac’s legacy and honouring his decades of service to Ryerson University and the School of Health Services Management”.
The invitation goes on to say, “Under his leadership, the School of Health Services Management developed highly respected degree-completion Bachelor of Health Administration programs in Health Services Management and Health Information Management. These are part-time, and targeted for working healthcare professionals. His vision and values have helped hundreds of students hone their management skills and achieve their goals through higher education”. The notification for the event ended with, “His grace, charm, and incredible warmth are engaging to all. Dr. Isaac’s hard work, dedication, endless energy, and immense respect for students have helped graduates achieve great things both professionally and academically. Most importantly, through the programs and students, has helped make healthcare better”.
The event opened with some brief remarks by the current director of the School, Dr. James (Jim) Tiessen who welcomed everyone and then introduced Dr. Steven Murphy, Dean of the Faculty of Management. Dr. Murphy spoke very fondly of Dr. Isaac and recalled that when he arrived at Ryerson to assume his role as Dean of the Ted Rogers School of Management, that Dr. Isaac kindly took him around to the larger Toronto area hospital to introduce him to the Chief Executive Officers/Presidents along ‘university row’. He went on to say that it is always a pleasure to see Dr. Isaac when he comes in to occasionally assist with the practicum seminars for the students in the final requirement for the Bachelor of Health Administration degree.
It was then Dr. Isaac’s turn to introduce the guest speaker but true to his ‘teacher’ style, he asked for the audience’s indulgence so that he could provide some background to his very early involvement with Ryerson and to extend thanks and appreciation to all those in attendance and for the ‘movers and shakers’ behind the nomination.
Dr. Isaac related that while he was a Respiratory Therapist with the role of Clinical Co-ordination/Instructor at Toronto General Hospital in the late 1970’s, he had the opportunity to teach in the Ryerson’s Post-RN (Registered Nurse) Intensive Care Unit course, whenever it was offered. His role was to deliver a three-hour lecture on the Principles of Ventilation and to follow that up with laboratory sessions on the Application of Ventilators. He also recalled his onsite involvement with Ryerson’s undergraduate nursing students who came regularly to the Intensive Care Units at Toronto General Hospital. Due to his love of teaching and training, he would always find time to explain ventilation and ventilators to the nursing students while they tended to acutely ill patients. Little did he know that the Nursing Instructor was observing him and years later that same nursing instructor was his Dean when he joined Ryerson in full, some fifteen years later.
Dr, Isaac told the audience that he was fortunate to have a Director from Ryerson’s International Institute in his PhD class cohort as she was the person who informed him of the then new school at Ryerson with plans to offer a program in management to Healthcare Professionals, leading to a Bachelor of Health Administration degree, using the degree-completion model. This was very significant for Dr. Isaac seeing that even before embarking on management education himself, it was his opinion that the practice of promoting the best clinical/technical healthcare professionals into management roles without the appropriate training and education was not a good practice. It was that belief that led him to continue his education in many fields, including management, before accepting a management job in healthcare.
Dr. Isaac also used the podium time to thank his many ‘families’ that included his immediate and extended families; students, graduates and staff – especially the two administrative assistants who supported him in his role as Director and the current School Administrator who organized the evening’s event. Other ‘families’ included the Ryerson community and the management faculty in general and the Faulty members in the School of Health Services Management, in particular; members of his church, members of the Central West Local Health Integration Network Board on which he served for 5 years; the Council of the College of Occupational Therapists of Ontario where he now serves as a public appointee at the pleasure of the Government of Ontario; and members of his Men’s Health Interest Group (The Walnut Foundation).
Dr. Isaac had the pleasant task of introducing the Keynote Speaker in the person of Dr. Samir Sinha. He is the Director of Geriatrics of the Sinai Health System and University Health Network Hospital in Toronto and an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is Co-Chair of Ryerson University’s National Institute on Ageing and a member of the University’s Board of Governors. Dr. Sinha is a highly regarded clinician and international expert in the care of older adults. His research focusses on how to build better models of care for older adults across the continuum of care that achieve better patients and system outcomes. He is the architect of the Government of Ontario’s Seniors Strategy and is currently preparing a national strategy on Ageing for Canada.
It came as no surprise that Dr. Sinha’s topic was, “On Becoming a Geriatrician, Health Strategist and Effective Advocate for Change”. He held the audience spell-bound with his vivid examples of how to effectively plan for elder care. Dr. Sinha drew on his expertise of Medical History and of Sociology to show how Geriatrics could be better serviced. For him, the secret to good Elder Care rests on four ‘pillars’, namely Independent, Productive and Engaged Citizens; Healthy and Active Lives; Care Closer to Home and Support for Caregivers. In spite of Dr. Sinha’s fame, he is a strong believer in home visits which is one of the pillars of his practice – he does home visits. He is also a strong advocate of change for making the lives of senior better and encourages everyone to become an agent of change to protect the lives of our most valuable citizens. In Dr. Sinha’s view, a strategy for Seniors’ care should possess the principles of Access, Quality, Value, Choice and Equity.
In the final thank you, Dr. Tiessen expressed his pleasure in having this recognition event for Dr. Isaac and was grateful to Dr. Sinha for accepting the invitation to be the Keynote Speaker. He also mentioned that even at his age, he has found Dr. Isaac to be a great mentor to him and was pleased that the University would offer the recognition as it did. He continued by saying that Dr. Isaac is a living testament to continued learning. He ended by asking the audience if they knew that Dr. Isaac has six degrees – three Bachelor’s, two Master’s and one PhD.
There was quite a buzz which continued long after the official end of the evening. One person was heard to say, “Awesome event. Good to hear some of the innovative strategies being put in place for Geriatric care... home visits and keeping seniors in their homes longer”.
Many individuals stayed back to express words of congratulations to Dr. Isaac for the “well-deserved honour and with such an outstanding recognition from the University”.
In speaking with Dr. Isaac, he stated that there were many lessons learned over the years and that on looking back, he was pleased with the course that life took at Ryerson University. He stated that his success was due in part to his strong sense of the importance of maintaining high standards; his passion for teaching with the opportunity to bring the mixture of theory and practice to the learning environment and being reminded of his mother’s mantra ‘that anything that is worth doing, is worth doing well’. He also expressed that his clinical training and expertise along with his academic preparation in science, psychology, management, adult education and health policy and his work experience in management and policy analysis made him an excellent fit for the roles at Ryerson University’s School of Health Services Management.
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