HEART and STROKE SAGA

For the past three years Ron and I have served as lay reviewers for research grant applications submitted to the Heart and Stroke Foundation for funding. Each year clinicians, physicians, academics, cardiologists, neurologists, and therapists etc. meet in mid-December in Ottawa. They convene in different committees to review and debate the scientific merits and feasibility of the annual grant proposals submitted to the Heart and Stroke Foundation. The grant applications are made by researchers ranging from individual neophytes all the way up to teams of senior researchers well-established as world leaders in their fields. Each grant application is reviewed in committee by the applicants’ peers who then submit a report to the Heart and Stroke Foundation stating the strengths and weaknesses of each application along with the committee’s recommendation whether or not the application merits funding. Any committee member who might, for various reasons clearly spelled out by HSF, be deemed to have a Conflict of Interest when a particular grant comes up for review, has to leave the room and cannot be privy to the debate or to the committee’s decision.

An additional requirement which the Heart and Stroke Foundation makes of its grant applicants is that they also submit a summary of their proposed research written in a language which members of the general public can understand. And here is where Ron and I and other lay reviewers step in. Prior to the Ottawa meetings we have received, read and commented on each lay summary made by the applicants to the committees to which we have been assigned. Each committee considers around forty submissions. After each application has been debated in committee the lay reviewer is asked to give his or her assessment of the project. If a lay reviewer finds a project unacceptable, their report also goes forward to HSF and no research funds will be awarded until the lay summary is rewritten and satisfies the reviewer’s expectations.

The tricky part of the annual gathering is getting everyone to Ottawa in mid-December around the solstice and the beginning of winter, when temperatures are wont to plunge and snow is likely to blow.

Let this year’s saga begin.

LEG ONE

One of the problems with flying to Ottawa is that, outside of the big Canadian cities, there are very few direct flights to our nation’s capital. Any flight to Ottawa from Comox, for example, our preferred point of departure, involves changing planes en route. That is the given. Add to this a new wrinkle. The disabled, the large and the tall can encounter problems fitting into the tiny washrooms on the new Bombardier turbo jets that have become the normal aircraft for travelling to and from secondary sites. Scheduling a route to Ottawa can get complex. The comparatively comfortable 737’s now make few flights into Comox. However, with the assistance of a flight advisor from WestJet Ron came up with an itinerary that fit his bill:

            Comox to Edmonton via 737. (Overnight at the airport hotel)

            Edmonton to Ottawa via 737 the next morning.

But they had not factored in fog.

Fortunately our afternoon flight to Edmonton was only delayed and not cancelled as many subsequently were. After a wait of thirty minutes our plane appeared out of the grey bank and we were good to go. After takeoff we were immediately above the fog, and suffused in brilliant sunshine. This was the third time Ron and I had taken the late afternoon flight from Comox to Edmonton. On a clear day, with the sunset painting the tips of the snow-capped mountains pink, I am convinced this is one of the most beautiful flights in the world.

It was dark when our plane landed in Edmonton. A half moon hung in the clear, cold sky as a WestJet attendant wheeled Ron all the way to the Renaissance Edmonton Airport Hotel. As she rolled Ron through the grand, circular corridor which curves upward in a semi-spiral to the expansive lobby, I felt like we had landed in a galaxy “far, far away.”  In this ultra modern hotel all the furniture looks to have been designed by Pablo Picasso or Salvador Dali—all form and dubious function—and The Library has no books. However, the Halo had plenty of food. After eating our meal in the company of a large party of Christmas revellers, who feasted on the far side of the chain mail curtain which separated us, we retired early and staggered to the departure gate, the next morning, at dawn.

To be con’t.