Dr. Tariq Esmail: Postgraduate Research Award Recipient

Dr. Tariq Esmail, one of our Anesthesia Residents, has received the Joseph M. West Family Memorial Fund Award through the Postgraduate Medical Education Research Awards, University of Toronto. Research proposals are reviewed by the Postgraduate Awards Committee, and a handful of residents are awarded funding to assist in the completion of their medical research. Further details on the program can be found here.

Dr. Esmail joins several other Anesthesiology Residents who have also previously been deemed ‘top ranked applicants’ and have received Postgraduate Research Awards.

Dr. Esmail is in his second year of the Anesthesia Residency Program at the UoftT. He developed an interest in SCUBA diving in his first year while obtaining his PADI certification, which led him to learn more about diving medicine and subsequently Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (a well known treatment for decompression illness in diving “the bends”). It was through a rotation in the Hyperbaric Unit at the UHN-Toronto General Hospital that he explored several other indications for the medical use of Hyperbaric Oxygen. Dr. Esmail trained with Drs. Rita Katznelson (Medical Director of the Hyperbaric Unit), George Djaiani and Ludwik Fedorko during his experience at the UHN. Through learning about the physiology of delivering one-hundred percent oxygen at increased atmospheric pressures, he considered the various uses in which it may still be applied for clinical benefit.

Dr. Esmail is currently designing a novel project to look at the possibility of using Hyperbaric Oxygen as a treatment for Vascular Dementia. By improving the blood/oxygen supply to the deep white matter of the brain, the pathologic changes observed in Vascular Dementia could potentially be reversed, or delayed in order to preserve cognitive function. Dr. Esmail is very thankful and appreciative for the opportunity to work with Dr. Katznelson, Dr. Djaiani and Dr. Fedorko, and to have the support of the Joseph M. West Family Memorial Fund.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Esmail!