BCCDC Grand Rounds | Shadows and Light: A Physician’s Lens on COVID


Event Details


About the Event

Speaker: Dr. Heather Patterson

Shadows and Light: A Physician’s Lens on COVID

Through a chronological visual story of the people who have experienced the pandemic first-hand, Heather shares how she found hope and a renewed sense of purpose in the resilience of the human spirit and the inspiring fortitude of Canada’s pandemic heroes.  Intimate images of healthcare workers, support staff, patients and families, shed light on the compassion, teamwork, and even joy that can be found amidst tragedy.  The images and stories highlight love and loss, kindness and grace, and the importance of authenticity during an epidemic of burnout, delivering a message that is relevant and critically important during our current health-care crisis.

Heather Patterson is an adult and pediatric emergency physician and photographer from Calgary, Alberta. When the pandemic struck, Patterson decided to put her twenty years of photography experience to use and began photographing the intimate moments at Calgary hospitals that went on to become Shadows and Light, her recent book publication. Photographs from the project have been featured in Macleans, where they were a finalist for a National Magazine Award, and the Calgary Herald and on CBC, CityNews, Global News, and CTV.  Patterson has received the Award for Medical Journalism from the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians and her work has been featured in medical journals and presented at conference and grand rounds across Canada.

BCCDC Public Health Grand Rounds is a self-approved group learning activity as defined by the Maintenance of Certification program of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Offsite participants (MDs only) can earn MoC credits by notifying Rachel Yiu about their attendance providing their name, title, institution, email address & phone.

Recordings of BCCDC Public Health Grand Rounds and Research Week sessions since October 2019 are available to view here. To access the library of archived Grand Rounds and Research Week sessions prior to October 2019, visit the PHSA Mediasite.

To learn more, click here for the Island Health medical staff calendar.