ACCES NEWSLETTER – Fall 2022
In this issue
President's Message
Hurricane Fiona
Conference Ideas
CE Week 2022 Photo Contest Winners
Nominate CE of the Year and Lifetime Achievement Award
Service New Brunswick’s Clinical Engineer Shares Innovative Research at International Consortium
2022 Bursary Winners
CMBEC45 - Call for Papers
News from our Members
News from our Corporate Members
President's Message
October 2022
Hello ACCES, the Executive Team has been thinking about our members and their families after the recent visit from Fiona and the devastation that was left in her tracks. From watching the news post hurricane, it could be seen throughout the Atlantic Provinces many people were without power for an extended period and still without today. In some cases, people had no homes to return to. The devastation was extreme, and we hope that everyone that has been impacted by Fiona is on the road to recovery.
ACCES is committed to help in any way that we can and although we can’t help every member effected by the storm, we are donating $1000 to the Red Cross which will be matched by the Federal government. Our thoughts are with you.
I do have some good news to share with our ACCES community, planning has started for ACCES25, and we have already had the opportunity to meet. Many of the committee members for 2019/2020 are back and excited to continue the planning once again for our Silver Anniversary, being held on May 9-12, 2023. Stay tuned as more news becomes available.
If you have any ideas or suggestion for training sessions or speakers, you can send your suggestions into This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Brett Fraser
President, Atlantic Canada Clinical Engineering Society
Hurricane Fiona
September 24th, 2022 is a date many Atlantic Canadians won’t soon forget. Hurricane Fiona certainly wreaked havoc that day, leaving a lot of people with their homes destroyed, damaged infrastructure, downed trees, as well as extended
periods without power caused by torrential rain, strong winds, and widespread flooding. Once again, Atlantic Canadians banded together to show their strong sense of community and hospitality to those in need – something that made everyone proud to be Atlantic Canadian.
As mentioned in the President’s letter, ACCES recognizes that it can’t help every member that has been impacted by the storm, but we are committed to making a $1000 donation to the Red Cross, which will be matched by the Federal government.
ACCES has reached out to the Red Cross who had this to say:
"The Red Cross is working closely with governments, Indigenous leadership, and local communities to provide emergency assistance. The Red Cross currently has teams deployed on the ground, providing support to Atlantic Canadians in Nova Scotia, PEI, and Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as some parts of Quebec that were impacted.
Your support will help us deliver urgent relief, and support recovery, resiliency, and risk reduction efforts in the difficult weeks and months to come."
If you’re able to do so, ACCES encourages taking advantage of the dollar-for-dollar matching that will take place by the Government of Canada (which will be in place until the 23rd of October). Your generosity means a lot as we work to help those impacted by this disaster.
Follow the hyperlink (Red Cross Donation) to donate today!
On behalf of ACCES, we would like to extend our deepest gratitude for your donation.
Conference Ideas
With the highly anticipated return of our annual ACCES conference taking place in Moncton, NB from May 9th-12th, 2023, we want to hear from our valued members on what exactly it is they’d like to see to help make this the best conference yet. We encourage you to send your ideas along in an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we’ll do our best to implement what we can. We can’t wait to get this conference rolling and look forward to seeing everyone to help us celebrate our Silver anniversary!
2022 Clinical Engineering Week Photo Contest Winners
Clinical Engineering departments across Atlantic Canada celebrated the National Biomedical and Clinical Engineering Week this past May (15th-21st). As with every year, the criteria haven’t changed much. Departments were tasked with snapping a picture of their version of celebrations for the cause of CE week activities, while having the ACCES logo visible in the picture.
This year, we had a lot of great submissions, and as a first, even one made it in from outside the Atlantic Provinces. The judges put their heads together and came up with the three winning submissions…
Moncton City Hospital – Moncton, NB
IWK Health – Halifax, NS
Health Association Nova Scotia (HANS) Clinical Engineering
Honorable Mention– Alberta Health
Each of the first three departments will receive a $200 cheque from ACCES to be used as they wish to help promote and recognize their team. Also, Alberta Health will be receiving a $100 cheque as an honorable mention as an organization outside of the Atlantic Provinces. Many thanks to all who participated in the 2022 photo contest. Keep promoting this amazing field of work and we look forward to seeing your submissions in 2023!
Nominate CE of the Year and Lifetime Achievement Award
We are calling out to the ACCES community for nominations for the 2022 “ACCES Clinical Engineering Professional of the Year Award” as well as the “ACCES Lifetime Achievement Award”. This award will be presented at the upcoming ACCES Annual Educational SeminarsTrade Expo, being held in Moncton, NB May 9-12, 2023.
Past recepients of these awards can be found at https://accesociety.org/awards. More details can be found at https://accesociety.org/awards/84-awards/463-award-details. Nominations need to be submitted through this website no later than December 1st, 2022.
Service New Brunswick’s Clinical Engineer Shares Innovative Research at International Consortium
Service New Brunswick Clinical Engineering team submitted this post to recognize Ishtar Al-Tahir, who had the opportunity recently to share her innovative research at a conference in the Netherlands:
Ishtar Al-Tahir, Clinical Engineer (MIT) with Health Services, completed her Master of Science in Engineering with the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of New Brunswick in 2021. Ishtar was recently selected to share the findings from her degree at the International Consortium for Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR) during the Rehab Week 2022 conference in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Ishtar’s research and thesis focused on myoelectric control, which uses muscle signals as an input to control an output device, such as a prosthetic limb or assistive device. Through designing and conducting a 10-day pilot experiment, Ishtar focused on co-adaptive myoelectric systems where both user and machine adapted as the user tried to control a cursor on a computer screen. Data was gathered and analyzed from a perspective that had not yet been applied to co-adaptive systems. The results clarified key attributes of co-adaptive systems and will allow future research to focus on these new attributes to develop more robust co‑adaptive myoelectric systems. Due to these novel results, Ishtar was accepted to share her findings at the ICORR 2022 conference.
She presented her research through a poster presentation. The first day offered workshops on clinical applications mixed with state-of-the-art engineering topics. The remainder of the conference allowed participants to network and attend presentations on as many as eight different topics of rehabilitation. Ishtar met many renowned academics and researchers in the field of rehabilitation and robotics and was able to share her work with them. She also took advantage of demos available throughout the conference from companies that offer exoskeletons, hospital equipment, and at-home rehab care.
After the conference, Ishtar took some time to explore the city and its surroundings and learn some Dutch.
Ishtar will be moving to a new role as Clinical Engineer at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) starting mid-October!!
Congratulations, Ishtar!
ACCES 2022 Bursary Recipents
ACCES is pleased to recognize Brady Spencer and Matthew McKenna as this year’s annual bursary winners. A short bio can be found below for both winners:
Brady Spencer
Brady was born and raised in the St. John’s, Newfoundland region (more specifically, Conception Bay South). He is currently enrolled at Memorial University full time in faculty of Physical Education.
Brady has always been passionate when it comes to sport, playing volleyball, hockey, and basketball locally, where he represented his school or minor sports association at the provincial level for all 3 of the mentioned sports. Outside of sports, Brady is an outdoors person, enjoying camping and fishing, as well as spending quality time with his friends and family.
It is Brady’s passion for sports throughout his life that led to him enrolling into Physical Education. Brady understood early that having great support and leadership is really what allowed him to thrive during his athletic career and helped shape him into the man he is today. Brady hopes that he can instill the same attributes that was passed on from his coaches and leaders including leadership, sportsmanship, teamwork, inclusion, respect, and work ethic into his future endeavors as a coach/mentor.
Brady pictured above receiving his cheque with his father Kelly Spencer
On behalf of ACCES we want to say congratulations Brady and keep up the great work!
Matthew McKenna
Matthew describes himself first and foremost as an “proud islander”, growing up in rural PEI, where he is currently enrolled at UPEI in their Sustainable Engineering Program. Matthew’s passions include snowboarding, speedskating (where he represented PEI in the 2019 Canada Winter Games), biking, helping with family building projects, aviation, music (playing the saxophone), and also prides himself in having an environmentally conscious mindset which is clear given his enrollment in the Sustainable Engineering Program.
Matthew always enjoyed hands-on work, even having worked with an architect for 3 years prior to his enrollment at UPEI. Here he learned important skills that will help him in his future career including drafting building plans, writing code reviews, and performing progress reports on site. These skills gave him a great appreciation for the amount of work involved in large building projects, as well as instilling important life skills in which he can apply throughout many everyday situations throughout his life.
Matthew also has a love of aviation, mentioning that no matter the season, his thoughts were always dominated by this topic. He loves spending time on his flight simulator, researching the latest technologies in space flight, or keeping up with the newest innovations in flight which include watching the Discovery Shuttle launch from Cape Kennedy.
Matthew has his sights set on furthering his education in a field that combines his passion for innovation and sustainability. He is extremely dedicated and will draw on his past experiences to help him throughout his journey.
Matthew pictured above receiving his cheque from his father, Brendon McKenna.
We at ACCES have no doubt Matthew will be successful in any endeavor he may choose and wish him all the best!
CMBEC48 - Call for Papers
Dear Colleagues,
The Canadian Medical and Biological Engineering Conference (CMBEC) is the annual conference of the Canadian Medical and Biological Engineering Society (CMBES). This is the premier event for biomedical engineering professionals in Canada, and the 45th CMBEC will be held at the Pinnacle Hotel in Vancouver, BC on May 16-18, 2023.
We welcome your submissionsof short (2-4 page) papers or 1-page abstracts on a broad range of topics related to biomedical engineering. Two paper competitions, one for Outstanding Research and the other for Student Papers, will be held to recognize the authors of the highest-ranked papers with cash prizes.
The deadline for submissions is February 1st, 2023. Please link to the official Call for Papers for full details and an active link to the PKP online paper management system.
We look forward to receiving your submissions.
News from our Members
If you have any noteworthy stories or events you would like to share with ACCES, I invite you to forward them to us via our This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. mailbox.
News from our Corporate Members
Dräger Atlan Anesthesia Workstation – When flexibility is vital
The Dräger Atlan A350 and A350 XL are focused on simplifying work procedures for both clinical staff and biomedical engineers – enabling them to address every challenge with ease. The Atlan system is innovative and flexible, offering maximum efficiency in performance and costs. Learn More
Introducing the New F&P 950 Humidifier
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare is passionate about producing world-leading healthcare solutions and is driven by innovation to enhance user experience and deliver greater health benefits. That is why we have advanced the design of the MR850 to produce the F&P950, a heated humidifier that offers greater usability and system performance. The F&P 950 System delivers consistent humidity over a wide range of environmental conditions, and up to 70 L/min with Optiflow™ Nasal High Flow therapy.
The F&P950 is easy to setup and use. Features include:
- Integrated probes.
- Temperature and flow probes have been integrated into the inspiratory limb and sensor cartridge, contributing to easier setup of the F&P950.
- The integrated patient-end temperature sensor is disposed of with the single-use circuit, eliminating the need for disinfection or sterilization.
- An interactive touch screen offers selection of Invasive, Mask, and Optiflow modes via a drop-down menu.
- While operating in either Mask or Optiflow mode, the temperature can be adjusted to support patient comfort.
- Fewer assembly connections. The number of connections is limited to enable easy assembly and decrease the potential for system alarms due to incorrect setup.
Link to F&P 950: https://www.fphcare.com/en-ca/hospital/adult-respiratory/invasive-ventilation/950-system/
F&P 950 education: https://resources.fphcare.com/public-courses/d14240c3-174d-4462-aa36-aae5a78dfb71/story.html
Stryker Surgical Camera Head Repair
Spectramedx offers flat rate repair on Stryker Surgical Camera heads with a 4-day turn-around time. Comprehensive repair is available on models Stryker 1288, 1488 and 1588 inclusive of:
- Cable replacement (new repair cable is also available for sale)
- Prism Adjustment & Replacement
- Damaged Buttons Replacement
- Damaged Camera Replacement
- Coupler Replacement
- Housing/external casing Replacement
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Phone: (226) 666-1114
Learn more about our products & services at our website https://spectramedx.ca