As both a researcher and a gay man, Dr. Paul MacPherson knows all too well the stigma that gay men often face in the health-care system. Now, as the Clinical Research Chair in Gay Men’s Health at The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa, he’s on a mission to make quality health care more accessible to this often overlooked patient population.

Over the past two years of the pandemic, more Canadians than ever have required mechanical ventilation to help them breathe. The Ottawa Hospital is the first hospital in the world to evaluate an innovative medical device that uses artificial intelligence to predict when critically ill patients are ready to breathe on their own.

Sun and sand turned to fear and uncertainty when Jim and Joanne Booth, married for 57 years, tested positive for COVID-19 in March 2020. Read about their journey back home to receive life-saving care at The Ottawa Hospital.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Irene and Rebecca have been on the front lines explaining all the available clinical trials to these patients and their families, often during those first difficult days of hospitalization.

For years, doctors thought Jenna Keindel had limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, even though they couldn’t find the exact gene that was causing the disease. This all changed when Jenna read a research article about an autoimmune disorder that mimicked muscular dystrophy – sending her life, and diagnosis, on an entirely new path.

When COVID-19 first arrived in Ottawa, The Ottawa Hospital was ready to respond. Explore the COVID-19 timeline to learn how care teams, researchers and the community have come together over the past year.