Ingram Award Recipients

Medical Graduates’ Society Dr. Wallace Ingram Award for New Faculty

Dr. Leslie Rourke, Family Medicine, was the 2006 recipient of the third annual Dr. Wallace J. Ingram Award for new faculty. Dr. Ingram was on hand to present the award, in the amount of $23,000, at the opening reception of the 2006 Medical Graduates Society Reunion the evening of July 28.

Dr. Rourke, who joined the Discipline of Family Medicine in 2005, is the primary author of the Rourke Baby Record, a system of well baby/child care for children from 0 to 3 years of age that is widely used in Canada outside Newfoundland. Prior to joining Memorial, she was funded by the Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services to update the Rourke Baby Record and perform research on its validity and use. She will use the Dr. Wallace Ingram Award for new faculty to kickstart several initiatives in Newfoundland, including enhancing teaching about preventive health issues in the infant and young child in the MUN medical undergraduate and postgraduate family medicine and pediatrics residency programs and to develop and maintain a website for the Rourke Baby Record that would be accessible to all with information on well baby/child care issues. She also plans to share or adapt Ontario resources to enhance knowledge of healthy and delayed child development, including developing a registry of local resources to aid interdisciplinary health care providers in accessing existing programs and resources for children suspected of having developmental problems.

The Dr. Wallace Ingram Award for new faculty was established in 2004 by the Medical Graduates Society under the leadership of president Dr. Wayne Gulliver, in honour of internist Dr. Wallace Ingram, who joined the medical school in 1971 and has served in many capacities – in particular as a wonderful tutor, lecturer and mentor to many.  

Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, Dr. Ingram earned his medical degree at Medical School Queens College in 1950, followed by  additional training in Belfast from 1950-1952 .He came to St. John’s in 1952 and did a rotating internship at the St. John’s General Hospital. He practiced in St. John’s from 1953–1954 and in Springdale from 1954– 958. In 1958 he went to Rochester Minnesota and was a fellow in Medicine at the Mayo Clinic; he completed his fellowship and M.Sc. (Medicine) in 1961. Dr. Ingram practiced as an internist in Grand Falls Windsor from 1961– 1964, returning to St. John’s in 1964.

HISTORY OF RECIPIENTS

In July 2004, the first year it was awarded, three new faculty received Dr. Ingram Awards of $10,000 each.

• Dr. Mark Stefanelli, assistant professor of Medicine (Neurology), used the award to support resident research and allow residents to present and attend national/international meetings, to increase public awareness/education via seminars organized through the multiple sclerosis clinic and Brain Injury Association and to start a yearly CME event Neurology Update for provincial Family Physicians.

• Dr. Natlie Bandrauk, assistant professor of Medicine and Critical Care at St.Clare’s Mercy Hospital,  used the award to develop preventative ethics strategies to improve the use of living wills by stimulating health care providers and the public to think ahead about end-of-life care and choices, so that crises at the end of life can be avoided and to foster the study of patients with multi-system organ dysfunction and their care.

• Dr. Anne Drover (Class of 1991), assistant professor of Pediatrics.used her award to develop and evaluate an interactive computer-based program to augment clinical teaching in the undergraduate pediatric curriculum.

In 2005 one award of $25,000 was presented to gastroenterologist Dr. Jerry McGrath for a project to promote research and education about Hepatitis C. Dr. McGrath graduated from Memorial University of Newfoundland with his MD in 1999. He completed residency in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology at the University of Western Ontario. He worked in London, Ontario for a year before returning to Memorial where he is an assistant professor of Medicine (Gastroenterology).