Some of the individuals recognized: Dr. Onyenyechukwu Nnorom, Dr. Monica Aggarwal, Dr. Farhan M. Asrar, Dr. Tania Tajirian, Dr. Ali Damji, Dr. Karen Tu, Dr. Sherylan Young, Dr. Abhimanyu Sud
Members of the Department of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM) community are continuing to gain distinction on local and national scales. From receiving King Charles III’s Coronation Medals to taking on exciting new appointments, take a moment to read about some of the remarkable accomplishments of your fantastic colleagues!
To commemorate the Coronation of King Charles III, 30,000 Canadians were recognized for making significant contributions to Canada or achieving outstanding accomplishments abroad that bring credit to the nation.
Six DFCM faculty members were selected for this national honour. Some of their contributions include impactful research in first aid and resuscitation, advancements in space medicine, improving access to palliative care, and innovations in social medicine and housing.
Dr. Onyenyechukwu Nnorom, Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health for the Province of Ontario
Dr. Nnorom has taken on a new role as Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health for the Province, becoming the first Black person to hold this prestigious role. In this position, her main portfolio will focus on Black health. To our knowledge, this marks the first time this portfolio has been represented at a provincial level in public health anywhere in Canada. Dr. Nnorom is also the Black health faculty lead with the DFCM and the creator and host of Healthcaring Differently, a digital mentorship initiative encouraging diverse youth to explore careers in medicine, research and health care.
“I am very pleased to welcome Onye to my team in Ontario’s Office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health,” says Dr. Kieran Moore. “Her dedication and public health expertise in the areas of health equity and Black health position her very well to contribute to advancing public health at the provincial level.”
Dr. Khalidha Nasiri, 2025 Robert Sheppard Award Learner Recipient
Dr. Nasiri, DFCM resident physician, was selected among many nominees across Temerty Medicine as the recipient of the 2025 Robert Sheppard Award for Health Equity and Social Justice. This prestigious award recognizes physicians and learners who’ve shown exceptional commitment to health equity, social justice and postgraduate medical education. Her residency research and quality improvement projects address health disparities amongst immigrant and refugee populations. Dr. Nasiri is also the founder of the Afghan Youth Engagement and Development Initiative, a not-for-profit that increases civic engagement and social development among Afghan newcomer and immigrant youth. Her research spans global health equity, refugee health and community-based research.
Dr. Tajirian and her team at CAMH received the Canadian College of Health Leaders’ Award of Excellence in Mental Health and Addictions Quality Improvement. Dr. Tajirian, who is the chief health information officer and chief of hospital medicine at CAMH, was selected in part for her contributions to the Improving Cancer Screening for Individuals with Severe Mental Illness Initiative (SMI). The initiative saw in-patients with SMI increase screening for colorectal, breast and cervical cancers by 33 per cent, 60 per cent and 50 per cent, respectively.
Dr. Melissa Graham, Academic Fellowship and Graduate Studies Program Director
Effective June 1, 2025, Dr. Graham will be DFCM’s new director of the Academic Fellowship and Graduate Studies Program. A graduate of the DFCM Family and Community Medicine Master’s program, she brings extensive teaching and leadership experience, including roles at Credit Valley and Trillium Health Partners. In her new role, she will lead curriculum innovation and ensure the program's continued excellence in family and community medicine education.
Dr. Aisha Lofters, Inaugural Waddington Family Community Research Capacity Building Program Director
Dr. Lofters has been acting as the DFCM’s inaugural Waddington family community research capacity building program director since the beginning of February. In this position, she has been working with Dr. Peter Selby to develop a research capacity-building program for community-based family physicians. Dr. Lofters, a family physician at Women’s College Hospital and associate professor at the University of Toronto, brings expertise in health equity, cancer care and primary care.
Dr. Christine Soong, Vice-Chair, Quality & Innovation with the Department of Medicine
Effective April 1, Dr. Soong has been serving as the vice-chair, quality and innovation with the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. The DFCM faculty and alum brings years of experience as an academic hospitalist, along with expertise in research and quality improvement to the role. Her research and QI interests include patient safety, high-value care, novel models of inpatient care and transitions of care.
Dr. Sherylan Young, Director of Undergraduate Education
Dr. Young is a comprehensive family physician who has been a long-standing leader on the undergraduate medical education team for 15 years. She has served as our clerkship curriculum coordinator since 2015 as well as the hospital site director at Sunnybrook since 2010. She has also been the clerkship evaluation coordinator since 2020, where she led the redevelopment of the family medicine clerkship examination and processes. She is a dedicated clinician, mentor and award-winning teacher, and we are thrilled to welcome her into this new role!
For Trillium Health Partners’ 2025 Better Together Week, Dr. Damji was the recipient of the Better Together Award for Clinical Teaching Undergrad and Postgrad.
“Teaching the next generation of health-care professionals and leaders here and abroad is the greatest joy and privilege of my life, and this award truly means the world to me!” he says.
Dr. Aggarwal was selected as the Chair of the Health Standards Organization’s (HSO) Technical Committee, which will lead the update to the Primary Health Care Services National Standard of Canada. The HSO is a not-for-profit organization that develops standards, assessments and quality improvement solutions that help to create a safer, healthier world.
Dr. Karen Tu: WONCA Outstanding Research Award
At the 26th WONCA Asia Pacific Regional Conference held in Busan, Korea in April, Dr. Tu received the Outstanding Research Award for her exceptional oral presentation titled “Examining Anxiety and Depression Visits to Primary Care in 8 International Consortium of Primary Care Big Data Researchers (INTRePID) Countries.” This recognition highlights the global impact of her work and the strength of international collaboration in primary care research.
Dr. Farhan M. Asrar, Mississauga Civic Award of Recognition
Dr. Asrar received the Mississauga Civic Award of Recognition from the Mayor of Mississauga and the Mississauga Council for his outstanding contributions nationally and internationally as a physician, researcher and educator.
DFCM Peer Reviewed Publications Awards: Drs. Tara Kiran, Bjug Borgundvaag, Noah Ivers, Abhimanyu Sud, Anne Biringer and Sakina Walji
The DFCM Peer Reviewed Publications Awards are given out each year to DFCM faculty who led outstanding peer-reviewed publications. Recipients are chosen by the DFCM Clinician Investigator Award recipients. Congratulations to this year’s winners:
1st place—Drs. Tara Kiran (Public experiences and perspectives of primary care in Canada: results from a cross-sectional survey) and Bjug Borgundvaag (Guidelines for Reasonable and Appropriate Care in the Emergency Department (GRACE-4): Alcohol use disorder and cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome management in the emergency department).
2nd place—Drs. Noah Ivers (Mailed feedback to primary care physicians on antibiotic prescribing for patients aged 65 years and older: pragmatic, factorial randomised controlled trial) and Abhimanyu Sud (Federal opioid agonist therapy policy: interrupted time series analysis of the impact of the methadone exemption removal across eight provinces in Canada).
3rd place—Drs. Anne Biringer (Recreating the village: the patient’s experience with a hybrid model of Group Prenatal Care (GPPC) in an academic family health team) and Sakina Walji (Implementing virtual care: experiences, perspectives and identification of improvement opportunities in an academic primary care setting).
