Thank you to all who attended the 2021 first virtual CCMG scientific meeting, who took the time to fill sessions evaluations and to connect with our valued sponsors. Feedback of attendants is essential to plan future events. Thank you to the Scientific program committee members for putting together an appealing program that covered frontline topics in clinical and laboratory Medical Genetics practice, and for their planning and animation of virtual social events. Thank you as well to Events Management Plus, particularly Meredith Slack, Colleen Fifield and Claire Running, for their excellent support of the logistics of this first virtual event.
Planning of the upcoming 2022 CCMG Scientific meeting is underway. The CCMG will be participating, through this event, in the worldwide celebrations surrounding the anniversary of Gregor Mendel’s 200th anniversary. See The Mendel newsletter.
Congratulations to 2021 CCMG Award recipients: Dr. Vazken Der Kaloustian, recipient of the Founders’ Award for Career Achievement; Dr. Angelika Dawson recipient of the F. Clarke Fraser Award for Excellence in Mentorship and Teaching; and Dr. Harriet Feilotter, recipient of the John L. Hamerton Service Award. In addition, Dr. Wendy Robinson was selected as an Honorary Affiliate of the CCMG. Thank you to the Awards and Nominations Committee for the selection of this year’s recipients. Congratulations as well to the winners of the 2021 Scientific Meeting best trainee presentations: Dr. Guylaine D’Amours, for best oral presentation and Dr. Somayyeh Fahiminiya & Dr. Xiao-Ru Yang for best poster presentations.
The 2021 virtual CCMG Annual General meeting was attended by a record 92 participants. The AGM is an opportunity for members to assess the performance of the College, and for the board of directors to share their vision for the future directions of our association. Thank you to all who participated, as members involvement is essential to the continued health of our College.
The CCMG website will be undergoing a makeover!
The website redesign will improve accessibility and visibility of the CCMG on virtual networks, will facilitate virtual conference access and access to prior educational sessions, as well as access to updated professional resources and CPD resources, as well as resources for other professionals and the public.
Thank you to our valued members who are offering their time and expertise to make this new website more functional and accessible:
Lindsay Brown
Isabelle De Bie
Resham Ejaz
Afia Hasnain
Michelle Siu
Andrea Vaags
Hilary Vallance
The new version of the CCMG website is anticipated to be operational towards March 2022.
To continue to address the strategy priority of “providing quality education for our members, trainees, the public and our profession”, the CCMG board of directors has engaged in the following project, that will require the input of our members:
The CCMG is aiming to submit its application to become a Royal College accredited continuing professional development provider in April 2022. By undertaking this review process, the CCMG would validate that it is meeting the highest standards in terms of education, maintenance of certification, administration and ethics. This would also allow the CCMG to develop or co-develop with other educational providers accredited group learning events and self-assessment programs.
A restructuration of the E2P2 committee and creation of a new Continuing Professional Development committee is planned.
CCMG members with an interest in education and continued professional development are encouraged to submit their application to this new committee.
— Dr. Isabelle De Bie, President, CCMG-CCGM.
Happy 200th Birthday to the Founder of Genetics
Gregor Mendel was born Johann Mendel on July 22,1822. His discoveries were not understood during his time, and he became recognized as the founder of genetics 35 years after his death in 1884. The medical genetics community may wish to use his birth bicentennial to foster awareness of his life, achievements, and his laws of genetics. Read more…
Membership
Call for Volunteers
Tired of the COVID rollercoaster? Keep your balance by focusing on the Medical Genetics expanding horizon!
The CCMG is putting out its annual call for volunteers. Participation to the CCMG committees, working groups and communities of practice is a fantastic way to engage with your colleagues of the Canadian Medical Genetics community on projects that impact clinical practice and education. It is also a great opportunity for professional development, as well as a chance to advance the interests of professionals working in Medical Genetics across Canada.
We have openings on the following committees:
Credentials – 1 opening Jan 2022 E2P2 – 1 opening Jan 2022 Exam advisory – 1 opening Jan 2022 Metabolics – 1 opening Jan 2022 NEW: Education & CPD – details to come
If you are interested in serving on one of these committees, please complete the application form below.
Deadline to submit a volunteer application is Monday, November 15, 2021.
Celebrate your colleagues! Send your nominations for the FOUNDERS’ AWARD FOR CAREER ACHIEVEMENT, JOHN L. HAMERTON SERVICE AWARD and F. CLARKE FRASER AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN MENTORSHIP AND TEACHING.
Information regarding the Linda Stevens Fund can be found on our CCMG website.
The deadline to submit Award nominations and Linda Stevens Fund applications is December 17, 2021.
We would like to remind our membership that we will begin reaching out to you for membership renewals in the Fall of 2021.
To support many new initiatives, the CCMG/CCGM membership voted to increase the annual membership dues as follows:
Fellow $565
Associate Fellow $300
Fellow in Training – no annual fee
We would like to ask our members to be sure to log into the CCMG website to update your profile with your current contact information to make sure we don’t lose touch with you. If you need help logging in, please contact us at .
Emeritus
The Emeritus status is conferred by the A&N committee to CCMG members who:
Are fully retired from medical genetics practice.
Contributed to the CCMG community by actively serving on CCMG committees including Board for at least 15 years.
All past presidents of the CCMG as well as past recipients of the Founders’ Award for Career Achievement, the John L. Hamerton Service Award or the F. Clarke Fraser Award for Excellence in Mentorship and Teaching qualify for Emeritus status upon retirement from medical genetics practice.
Emeritus members may continue to sit on committees and have a vote, but are not required to pay annual membership fees.
Please reach out to the CCMG office if you would like to be considered for Emeritus status at
CCMG Exams
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the CCMG Examinations Committee, with approval of the Board of Directors, will forego the in-person OSLEs, which will now be a written exam. The 2022 examination dates will be:
Tuesday, May 31st for the General Exam
Wednesday, June 1st for the Written Specialty Exam
Thursday, June 2nd for the OSLEs
Where possible, these three examinations will be held at the local CCMG accredited training centres. Further information will be sent to candidates that register for the 2022 CCMG examinations.
Committee News
Notice to Committees: Committees are reminded when using medical writers, please use format of JMG which is the official journal of CCMG.
REMINDER to Members! You have free access to journal through the Publications tab of the CCMG website.
Congratulations to the Clinical Practice Committee!
The following article has recently been published in the Journal of Medical Geneticists.
This CCMG Ad Hoc Working Group is to redesign the existing Training Guidelines for the Biochemical Genetics Clinical and Laboratory specialties. This redesign will result in a training structure aligned with the Competency by Design (CBD) training model adopted by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) and loosely modeled after the new CCMG training guidelines developed for the Genetic and Genomic Diagnostics (GGD) program that was launched in May 2020.
The working group will also address the impact of implementation of the redesigned training program on trainee credentialing, and the content and process of CCMG examinations.
FiT Community of Practice
The goal of the Fellows in Training (FiT) Community of Practice (CoP) is to facilitate and support exchange, networking, and career development between Clinical and Laboratory Genetics Trainees across Canada to develop skills as Medical Experts, Communicators, Collaborators, Leaders, Health Advocates, Scholars, and Professionals in Genetics.
Interested in Joining the FiT CoP?
Reply to with the following details:
Name
Training specialty
Training centre
Training start date and projected date of completion
*If you are not currently a registered CCMG trainee, please provide the name and email of the program director at your training centre.
CCMG has made significant strides to be active and engaged on social media, using our Twitter account, @GeneticistsCCMG. This effort is led by our CCMG volunteer, Dr. Hanna Faghfoury. She has singlehandedly increased the frequency of CCMG’s tweets, added some exciting visual content, and expanded our interactions with Twitter accounts that belong to our sister organizations. Please follow our CCMG Twitter account and help improve the visibility of our CCMG organization by liking and re-tweeting our posts. You may reach the CCMG Social Media strategy group at and please feel free to share genetics-related information locally, provincially and nationally.
CCMG Social Media Strategy group: Beth Spriggs, Hanna Faghfoury, Ian Bosdet, Isabelle De Bie, Liz McCready, Colleen Fifield
Notice of Retirement – Dr. Lorne Clarke is a professor of medical genetics at the University of British Columbia, Canada and is a clinical and biochemical geneticist in the Provincial Medical Genetics Program for the Province of British Columbia. He received his initial training in biochemistry and medicine at McGill University, and subsequently went on to Dalhousie to complete paediatric residency. He then came West to complete his CCMG clinical and biochemical genetics fellowship with Judith Hall and Derek Applegarth, 1988-1991. His first appointment was a combined one, with our program under Jan Friedman’s leadership at the time, and the biochemical disease clinic. He was given lab space and mentorship by Dr Hayden, and launched himself in what would be an outstanding clinician scientist career.
Dr. Derek Arnold Applegarth PhD, FCCMG, UBC Professor Emeritus
July 5, 1937 – July 28, 2021
Derek never forgot his Geordie roots and was grateful for the educational opportunities in post-war Britain which made possible his journey from Boldon Colliery Primary School to the Emeritus College UBC. With degrees from the Universities of Durham and Newcastle, he emigrated to Canada in 1961 with his first wife Doreen. He held a post-doctoral fellowship in the UBC Chemistry Department then a position as Clinical Chemist at the Health Centre for Children, Vancouver General Hospital. In 1969, he founded the Biochemical Diseases (later Biochemical Genetics) Laboratory at Children’s Hospital. In this emerging discipline, he collaborated with scientific and clinical colleagues across Canada and around the world to diagnose and investigate children with rare metabolic diseases, teaching and publishing extensively and receiving many awards.
The CCMG 2022 Annual Scientific Meeting will take place virtually on June 6-9, 2022.
Further details will be announced in the new year.
Sponsored Educational Series
Along with our Leading Strand and TeleGraf educational monthly webinars, the CCMG is able to offer you additional educational webinar series through industry partnerships.
You can view the upcoming schedule and registration details on our CCMG website under the events tab HERE.
