2025 iRISE Conference explores decolonizing patient care

This year's annual IRISE Conference will explore how to create better healthcare through racial equity, medical justice and amplifying Black voices in the field

The Black Aspiring Physicians of McMaster will host their seventh annual iRISE Conference on Jan. 25, 2025. This year the conference will take place from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in L.R. Wilson Hall room 1055 at McMaster University and focuses on the theme of decolonizing patient care.

BAP-MAC is an MSU club that promotes inclusivity & supports Black students aspiring to work in the healthcare field. Harmela Celestin, co-president of BAP-MAC, explained the role of their club.

"We're basically a resource to connect students to different opportunities and provide mentorship to help cultivate the skills and competencies that they need to pursue their aspirations in healthcare. And we don't limit ourselves to medicine, even though we are the Black Aspiring Physicians," said Celestin.

Akudo Eze-Onuorah, another co-president of BAP-MAC, spoke about the large turnout the conference receives each year. "It ranges from 90 to 120," said Eze-Onuorah.

The conference is open to everyone and tickets are available for purchase to the general public.

"Everyone is invited, the good thing about our conference is that we base it in aspiration towards health care like healthcare professions . . . We want our audience to be reflective of a community who is striving towards a more equitable healthcare landscape," said Celestin.

Attendees can expect a full itinerary of both professional and student panels, a keynote speaker, networking opportunities, workshops, breakfast, lunch and LinkedIn headshots. "Early bird tickets are going on now. It's six dollars and 70 cents and then after the early bird sale it's going to be eight dollars," said Celestin.

Dr. Onye Nnorom is this year's keynote speaker. The student panelists are Danielle Pinder who is a first-year medical student at McMaster University, Fatim Kalogo who is a first-year student in the physician assistant program at McMaster University and Lulwama Mulalu who is a Global Health PhD candidate.

The professional panelists are Dionne Sinclair who is a chief nursing executive, Dr. Kwasi Nkansah who is an emergency medicine resident and Hillaree Alliman who is a registered psychotherapist.

"We're going to be asking them questions as a panel that are related to our theme of decolonizing patient care. Now they [student panelists] will offer a student perspective as people who are more relatable to our undergraduate audience and our high school audience and offer their perspectives as people pursuing their degrees before we go into another panel later in the day of professionals who are currently practicing in the healthcare field," said Celestin.

There will be two workshops that provide attendees with the opportunity to get more hands on experience, including a suture workshop.

"We bring in practicing physicians to instruct a workshop where students have the opportunity to actually suture themselves, they learn how to suture and how to do different suturing procedures on suturing kits that we provide them . . . in addition to that, new to this year we have a workshop with a specific organization called African, Caribbean and Black Organ Health. So we're going to have students interact with a donor transplant case study and kind of speak directly with that or explore the patient interaction experience," said Celestin.

Celestin discussed the significance of hosting the conference annually. "We have the iRISE Conference every year to increase the awareness of these different professions to connect students with professionals who are currently leaders in their fields. And really just to showcase and celebrate all the different black leaders who are innovators in their fields and were pursuing different themes that align with our iRISE Conference," said Celestin.

Eze-Onuorah explained the importance of iRISE being open to all races when engaging in this year's theme of decolonizing patient care.

"We want to make this open to everybody because we feel it shouldn't be just Black people talking about Black people's issues. This should be discussed everywhere so people are knowledgeable. Because we say that the people that are non-BIPOC don't know about BIPOC issues. But if we keep segregating ourselves and not let them know about our issues, how would they know. How would they get information when it's not given to them . . . everyone's invited to come for iRISE so that they can hear about issues that might not just be very visible to them.," said Eze-Onuorah.

Eze-Onuorah discussed what she hopes resonates with attendees. "I want them to walk out of the conference, knowing that there's more than just medicine. Because before I thought that being a physician was working in hospital and it was nurse or doctor period . . . If there is anything I want them to know, [it is] that there are more different ways that they could help people," said Eze-Onuorah.

If you are interested in what the conference has to offer, you can buy your ticket online and enjoy a full day of thought-provoking discussions, inspiring journeys, hands-on workshops and more. You can keep up with BAP-MAC's Instagram for more details on the conference and future opportunities to aid your academic experience at McMaster.