About Us
Dr. Rachel Khadaroo
Surgeon-Scientist, University of Alberta Hospital
Associate Professor, University of Alberta
Dr. Rachel Khadaroo is an Associate Professor, Intensivist, and surgeon-scientist in the Department of Surgery at the University of Alberta. She earned her Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Medicine (MD) at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Dr. Khadaroo achieved her PhD in the Surgical Scientist Program at the University of Toronto. She completed her General Surgery training at the University of Alberta and specialized in Critical Care Medicine at the University of Toronto. Her clinical interests are in Acute Care Surgery and critical illness.
Dr. Khadaroo has a number of publications and has travelled worldwide for her research. She is dedicated to the advancement of care for older patients undergoing surgery. Her research activities span two pillars of health inquiry –biomedical and clinical. She was the Principle Investigator for the Elder-friendly Approaches to the Surgical Environment Study (EASE), which was a multi-site care initiative that investigated impact of elder-friendly practices on surgical patients (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/article-abstract/2760955). Her research interests include the identification of barriers to evidence-based practices on surgical wards and factors present at the patient-level or biological-level to help optimize perioperative or postoperative care to improve outcomes in surgical patients. Her laboratory focuses on using clinically relevant models examining mechanisms and biomarkers in sepsis and intestinal injury to develop novel diagnostic and treatment strategies in critically ill patients.
In her spare time she enjoys drawing and has previously won first prize in Ontario for medical illustration. More recently she has used her creativity by launching You Tube videos for surgical education (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcRU-gvOmxE2mwMWkowouBkxGXkLZ8Uis).
For more information on her research, visit her website at drkhadaroo.com or contact Dr. Khadaroo at khadaroo@ualberta.ca
Research Team
Dr. Saad Salim , PhD
Lab Research Associate
Dr. Saad Salim earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and then moved to Sweden for his Ph.D. His thesis focused on studying the relationship between microbes, intestinal permeability and underlying immune cells in intestinal surgical specimens from patients with inflammatory bowel disease. After completing his Ph.D. in 2008, he moved back to Canada to do a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the University of Alberta, where he researched how probiotic components as well as environmental factors modulate the intestinal immune system.
Dr. Salim is the Lab Research Associate. He is in charge of managing the laboratory bench work for Dr. Rachel Khadaroo at the University of Alberta. With his expertise in working with human specimens, Dr. Salim will be evaluating how biological samples can provide an insight into the overall health outcomes in elderly patients that undergo emergency abdominal surgery in the EASE-BIO study.
Lindsey Warkentin MSc, CCRP
Lead Clinical Research Coordinator
Lindsey Warkentin completed a BSc. Honours in Psychology at the University of Alberta. After she began working as a clinical research coordinator in conjunction with Alberta Health Services and the Department of Nephrology overseeing multiple grant and industry sponsored clinical trials in the area of kidney transplantation.
Lindsey recently completed her MSc. Experimental Medicine at the University of Alberta (April 2014), working with Dr. Raj Padwal and Dr. Sumit Majumdar to assess the effects of weight loss on health related quality of life, specifically defining the amount of weight loss required to achieve clinically significant improvements in quality of life. Lindsey’s thesis work has been published in top obesity and medicine journals, including BMC Medicine.
Lindsey is the Lead Clinical Research Coordinator for the EASE study. Lindsey manages the clinical research projects of Dr. Rachel Khadaroo. With her expertise in health services research, Lindsey is overseeing the enrollment, data collection and analysis of the clinical and humanistic outcomes of elderly patients that undergo emergency abdominal surgery across all sites.
Hanhmi Huynh, BSc, BScN, RN
Research Assistant
Hanhmi is a graduate of the University of Alberta with a BSc major in Biological Sciences and BScN After-degree Nursing program at the U of A. She has previously worked as a Research Assistant and continues to work as a Registered Nurse with experience in Alberta and Ontario.
Hanhmi is the Research Assistant for the Elder-Friendly Approaches to the Surgical Environment (EASE) Study. She’ll be using both her research and nursing background to collect important data for improving health outcomes for patients and providers.
Current Students
Dr. Ahmed Negm, MD, PhD
Dr. Ahmed Negm is a trained orthopedic surgeon (Royal College of Surgeons of England). With a passion for clinical research and knowledge translation, Dr. Negm completed his Master of Science in Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University. Dr. Negm recently completed his Ph.D. in Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University and led several research initiatives to improve functional performance of frail older adults and their caregivers. He led the development and coordination of the FitJoints multi-site randomized control trial, a trial examining the feasibility and efficacy of a multi-modal frailty interventions tailored to older adults undergoing joint replacement.
In recognition of academic excellence and leadership, Dr. Negm has received over 30 academic awards including Alberta Innovates Post-doctoral fellowships, Osteoporosis Canada Ph.D. Studentship Research Award, Canadian Frailty Network Interdisciplinary Fellowship, and Ontario Graduate Scholarship.
Dr. Negm is a postdoctoral fellow at the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine focusing on optimizing health outcome of Older Canadians with frailty and sarcopenia through improving rehabilitation interventions. Currently, he is a member of the Osteoporosis Canada Guidelines Update Committee as well as Alberta Bone & Joint Health Institute Fragility and Stability committee.
He is working on a systematic review and network meta-analysis of sarcopenia interventions. He also aims to examine the relationship between body composition and post-operative physical performance in people undergoing emergency surgery.
Dr. Amirt Bhullar, PhD
Amrit Bhullar has completed his B.Pharmacy in India and then moved to London, United Kingdom for MSc in Pharmaceutical Sciences. After completing his master's degree, he worked as a research assistant at Lipidomics and Nutrition Research Centre. He then moved to Canada to pursue his PhD in Nutrition and Metabolism.
His thesis focused on characterization of muscle of cancer patients and its association with clinical outcomes. He looked into variability of fat distribution and fatty acid composition in the muscles of cancer patients. Amrit is the postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta and work with Dr Rachel Khadaroo. He is leading the project involving evaluation of biological specimens to determine its association with clinical and functional outcomes in elderly patients undergoing surgery