UM TodayDepartment of Psychiatry – UM Today

Flin Flon Online: Wildfire evacuees’ mental health a concern according to Northern Health Region

Fiona Odlum — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 19:42:36 +0000

The residents from a number of northern Manitoba communities and First Nations have been evacuated from their homes due to raging wildfires.

While their physical well-being and safety was top of mind, their mental health is also a concern.

Dr. Adegoke Adelufosi, a psychiatrist with the Northern Health Region and assistant professor at the University of Manitoba, shares some ways evacuees may exhibit signs of stress.

“For example, people may have difficulty with sleeping, so insomnia, anxiety that can manifest as distress or just panic attacks. Some may have even nightmares as part of the reaction and also depression.”

To read the entire conversation, please follow the link to Flin Flon Online.

Medscape Medical News: Mental health worse after workplace injuries

Eleanor Coopsammy — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 17:00:08 +0000

Patients with workplace injuries have worse mental health outcomes over time than patients with non-workplace injuries. These insights are from a recent study involving researchers in the departments of community health sciences, surgery, psychiatry and internal medicine at the Max Rady College of Medicine, and in the department of psychology at UM.

In a cohort study that included more than 35,000 patients, rates of anxiety and any mental disorder were more strongly associated with injury in the workplace than injury outside the workplace.

“There’s a lot of research detailing that workplace injury leads to bad mental health outcomes, but there’s not a lot of research comparing workplace injury to injury outside of the workplace head to head,” said co-author Dr. Anthony Wightman, a first-year internal medicine resident at UM.

You can read the full story in Medscape Medical News.

CityNews Winnipeg: Quicker supports for military veterans needed: say experts

Fiona Odlum — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 18:59:18 +0000

Dr. Jitender Sareen, the Department Head of Psychiatry at the University of Manitoba, says while improvements have been made in the aftercare of veterans in the past two decades, there’s still a gap in how quickly people can get the different kinds of care they need.

“Over the life course, up to six out of 10 military veterans will have depression or anxiety or a substance-use problem sometime in their life,” said Jitender, whose research is in mental health with a focus on PTSD, depression and suicide prevention for veterans and public safety personnel.

“The majority of people when they get the right treatments at the right time, they actually recover. Often, the challenge is not having enough of those resources in a timely manner.”

To read the full story, please visit CityNews Winnipeg.

CBC The Current: Manitoba researcher wins prestigious award for work that made dignity the focus in palliative care

Fiona Odlum — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 20:03:47 +0000

Dr. Harvey Max Chochinov, a groundbreaking palliative care researcher from the University of Manitoba, has won a prestigious international award for pioneering “dignity therapy” and other patient-centred approaches to caring for the dying.

A leader in the field of palliative care and communication, Chochinov’s approach that focusses on patient dignity has been adopted around the world.

For more than 30 years, the distinguished professor of psychiatry at the University of Manitoba and senior scientist at the CancerCare Manitoba research institute studied how health-care workers can alleviate emotional and mental suffering for end-of-life patients in practical ways.

To read more and to listen to the conversation, please visit CBC: The Current