Surrey-Dr. Singh is a hospitalist physician and osteoporosis specialist. She is the third Fraser Health physician to receive the prestigious Michael Smith Health Research BC Professional-Investigator Award.
The Michael Smith Health Research BC Professional-Investigator Award provides financial support to health professional who are actively involved in patient care to build their research programs, train the next generation of scientists, and make significant contributions to their field.
“I’m incredibly grateful for this opportunity,” says Dr. Singh. “There aren’t a lot of salary support awards for research for practicing clinicians who don’t have paid academic appointments. The research I’m doing involves a lot of teamwork and collaboration and it’s very time-consuming.”
Dr. Sonia Singh and her team are committed to helping people live well as they age, particularly older adults with fragility fractures – the type of fractures not associated with a specific event like skiing or other forms of exercise.
“In orthopedics and emergency medicine, we do a good job of treating fractures and broken bones and ensuring patients have rehabilitation to regain function,” says Dr. Singh. “But we don’t typically have the wraparound care to ensure people don’t come back with another fracture.”
The award will allow for more patient-oriented research and the potential expansion of the Fracture Liaison Service. Preventing a second and third fracture is the goal of the Fracture Liaison Service. Patients who’ve had a fracture and are at risk of subsequent fractures receive a personalized prevention treatment plan and are followed for one year by a Fracture Liaison Service coordinator.
Dr. Singh brought the Fracture Liaison Service to Fraser Health in 2015 and it is currently offered at Peace Arch Hospital and Chilliwack General Hospital. She says fractures are one of the reasons that people lose their independence and end up in long term care. “Preventing fractures improves quality of life and helps people maintain their independence while decreasing health-related costs. With this award, we hope to expand access to this important service and ultimately, I would like to see it available to patients province wide.”
The award will give Dr. Singh the flexibility to devote half of her time to research. It comes with dedicated funding for her and her team to accelerate knowledge dissemination, expand capacity to mentor trainees, and forge research collaborations nationally and internationally.
“Dr. Singh is an accomplished clinician-researcher within Fraser Health and a shining example of how physicians support their patients by constantly striving for better ways of delivering health services,” says Kate Keetch, Director, Department of Evaluation and Research Services, Fraser Health. “Her research in the area of frailty is already improving lives and is moving knowledge into action. I’m very proud of her and her impressive accomplishments to date and receiving the 2024 Michael Smith Health Research BC Health Professional Investigator award reflects her commitment to patients and research in the Fraser Health region and beyond. Hats off to Dr. Singh for being the third Fraser Health clinician to be honoured with this prestigious award.”
