Dr. Adam Weizman was recently named Medical Director of the IBD program at Mount Sinai Hospital, and the journey started at a young age. “My family is full of health care workers, and being a physician always seemed like a calling and a natural fit for me,” he says.
It was in the early days of medical training that Adam was first drawn to gastroenterology, and specifically inflammatory bowel disease. “While in medical school at the University of Manitoba, I was mentored by Dr. Charles Bernstein. I found his lectures on IBD fascinating and was drawn to this disease, largely in part because it effects so many young people,” he shares. “It is also an increasingly common health problem in Canada and I was curious about the many research questions that the disease presented.”
Since those early days, Adam has completed a number of turns that would lead to his current role. This includes a move from his hometown of Winnipeg to Toronto for an internal medicine and gastroenterology residency, and then an advanced fellowship in IBD at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in California. In addition to his work as a physician, he is also dedicated to health care management and improvement, and completed a Master’s degree in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety from the Institute of Health Policy, Evaluation, and Management at the University of Toronto.
Today, Adam has a busy clinical practice of patients with IBD and other gastrointestinal issues, and conducts research in health care quality and health outcomes in patients with IBD. He is also Head of Quality Improvement and Patient Safety for the combined Division of Gastroenterology at Sinai Health and the University Health Network.
Adam is proud of the program at Mount Sinai. “The IBD program has had tremendous growth over the past few years and we have an incredible group of physicians that continue to move the program forward,” he says. “We follow the largest cohort of IBD patients in the country, have the world’s largest IBD Fellowship Program, and our doctors are nationally and internationally renowned researchers in the field.”
When asked about his vision for the IBD program, Adam shares “I see the future of our program as very bright as we strive towards delivering high quality, patient-centered care. Sinai Health should provide a one stop shop for our IBD patients with access to their physicians, surgeons, dietitians, social work, stoma nurse and other care providers all in one place and preferably seen at one visit.”
While Adam has an impressive track record and passion for IBD management as well as quality improvement, his children, aged four, two and two months have it distilled to a much simpler form. “They know me as the bum and tummy doctor.”