Directory

Lynora Saxinger

Professor, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry - Medicine Dept
Contact Overview Publications

Contact

Professor, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry - Medicine Dept
Email
saxinger@ualberta.ca
Phone
(780) 492-8193
Address
1-124J Clinical Sciences Building
11304 83 Ave NW
Edmonton AB
T6G 2G3

Overview

Area of Study / Keywords

Antimicrobial Resistance Antibiotic Utilization Surveillance Population Health Growth Promotors in agrifood Antibiotic Stewardship

About

Lynora Saxinger, CTropMed, MD, FRCPC, is a University of Alberta-based Infectious Diseases specialist whose clinical practice includes HIV, Hepatitis C, and Travel and Tropical Medicine. Since the start of the pandemic, she acted as co-lead of the now-decommissioned Alberta COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Group, and has been a pandemic content expert commentator and advisor to major media outlets, with public science communication outreach through social media (as @AntibioticDoc on Twitter). She has an evolving academic interest in science communication, social media impact, and knowledge translation for public education around COVID-19.

Her prepandemic professional career, outside patient care has focused on antimicrobial stewardship and antimicrobial resistance, with involvement in hospital, health system and national collaborations to improve antibiotic stewardship practice, and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and utilization (AMU) surveillance including a One Health perspective. She is a founding member and past chair of the Antimicrobial Resistance and Stewardship Committee of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Canada, and has worked with the Canadian Hospital Epidemiology Committee/CNISP collaboration with the Public Health Agency of Canada, and the Canadian Integrated Program for Antimicrobial Resistance in utilization reporting of human antimicrobial use data. She has a been a consultant to the Auditor General of Canada on AMR, and was a Principle Investigator of a two commissioned reports for the National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases, "Antimicrobial Resistance and Utilization Surveillance in Canada" in 2014 and "Progress on Integrated Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Surveillance in Canada (2014-2019)" in 2021.  

Dr. Saxinger is involved in education, policy development and knowledge translation in medical and other health care professional training and in public engagement and science communication. Her current role is  Professor of Medicine, University of Alberta. 



Clinical Interests

COVID-19, infectious diseases, travel and tropical medicine, HIV, fungal infections, bacterial infections, parasitic infections

Research

COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2

Antimicrobial Utilization and Resistance, Surveillance of Antimicrobial Utilization and Resistance

One Health - Antimicrobial Resistance

Antimicrobial Stewardship - prospective Audit and Feedback

Management of patients with beta lactam allergy, surgical antibiotic prophylaxis

Knowledge translation, science communication


Teaching

Teaching Philosophy:

I have spent many years as a prolific teacher in multidisciplinary health professions and science education (undergraduate and postgraduate medicine, other undergraduate sciences and Public Health, pharmacy, nursing, and continuing medical education). 

My individual teaching approach, which correlates best with my teaching successes, is centred on:

1)      Motivation of learning through illustrating the "why": This often manifests as a case presentation (patient or societal) at the start of a session, because a human centred narrative is a powerful teaching and communication tool when the narrative is constructed to support and reflect the scientific evidence. This is also crucial in science communication with the public.

2)      Integration of personal authenticity and experience: I share my enthusiasm and interest in the topic, to engage with the audience, often with humour if appropriate. Personal connection is getting to rare, and I feel that the more austere "sage on the stage" approach may hinder the bidirectional communication that animates discussion, and discussion is an adult learning key. Also, with dialogue and interchange, learners are heard, and the instructor can tailor the content to their needs.

3)  Balancing the detail: my love of interesting detail may collide with learner needs, so clear communication around expectations is needed. I tend to err on the side of richness of detail, but when done well, a balanced approach with clearly "optional" illustrative detail can allow learners to choose to indulge in the detailed framing if they are interested, or hone in on the "need to know" content.


 This approach also informs my increasing role in public science communication around COVID-19 and AMR, and knowledge translation.

 

Teaching Scope:

I teach in undergraduate medicine, both large group lectures, clinical clerk lectures, and Discovery Learning groups yearly (I prefer to precept different blocks DL courses for variety and enrichment.) I teach Academic Half Day lectures for Internal Medicine resident, am a preceptor for Simulation sessions, and give Surgical, Neuroscience, and Community Medicine academic half day sessions. 


I have taught in undergraduate Physiology, Philosophy of Science, in Nursing, and more recently guest lectured in Communications at King’s College, and Knowledge Translation and Science Communication at Grant McEwen. 


In addition to scheduled teaching requests I have volunteered to assist in curriculum design and precept in formal youth outreach events over time, including the Asclepius Youth Camp and a Philosophy for Children summer camp program, "Eurekamp", co-developing a week long camp called "Doctoring Curiosity". I also facilitated a medical student codesigned community HIV elective and have spoken to Infectious Diseases and HIV noon interest "clubs", and medical student and resident career days.


During the pandemic I have spoken to multiple national medical groups (Oncologists, Rheumatologists, physician associations, and dental health professional) and to members of the public at pandemic outreach events hosted by various service clubs and associations.

   

Featured Publications

Rotating opportunistic prevalence audit: A new pragmatic audit method is effective at identifying misuse of ciprofloxacin in a large academic hospital

Justin Chen, David Waldner, Lynora Saxinger

INFECTION CONTROL AND HOSPITAL EPIDEMIOLOGY. 2022 April; https://www.doi.org/10.1017/ice.2022.78

The impact of shifting demographics, variants of concern and vaccination on outcomes during the first 3 COVID-19 waves in Alberta and Ontario: a retrospective cohort study

McAlister F.A., Nabipoor M., Chu A., Lee D.S., Saxinger L., Bakal J.A.

CMAJ open. 2022 April; 10 (2):E400-E408 10.9778/cmajo.20210323

Health Services: Informing COVID-19 vaccination priorities based on the prevalence of risk factors among adults in Canada

McAlister F.A., Bushnik T., Leung A.A., Saxinger L.

CMAJ. 2022 April; 193 (17):E617-E621 10.1503/cmaj.210529

Apples to Apples? A Comparison of Real-World Tolerability of Antiretrovirals in Patients with Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection and Patients with Primary Biliary Cholangitis

Shannon L. Turvey 1, Lynora Saxinger 1 and Andrew L. Mason 2,*

Viruses. 2022 March; 14 10.3390/v14030516

Integrated surveillance of antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial use: Evaluation of the status in Canada (2014-2019)

Otto S.J.G., Haworth-Brockman M., Miazga-Rodriguez M., Wierzbowski A., Saxinger L.M.

Can J Public Health. 2022 February; 63 (2):161-170 10.17269/s41997-021-00600-w

In uninfected household contacts of patients with COVID-19, REGEN-COV reduced symptomatic COVID-19 at 28 d

Lau D., Saxinger L.

Annals of Internal Medicine. 2022 January; 175 (1):JC5 10.7326/J21-0008

In uninfected household contacts of patients with COVID-19, REGEN-COV reduced symptomatic COVID-19 at 28 d.

Lau D, Saxinger L.

Ann Intern Med 2022. 2022 January; 175 (1):JC5 10.7326/J21-0008

Public health implications of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern: A rapid scoping review

Somerville M., Curran J.A., Dol J., Boulos L., Saxinger L., Doroshenko A., Hastings S., Reynolds B., Gallant A.J., Shin H.D., Wong H., Crowther D., Macdonald M., Martin-Misener R., Comeau J., McCulloch H., Tricco A.C.

BMJ Open. 2021 December; 11 (12):e055781 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-055781

Public Health implications of SARS-CoV-2 variants of Concern; a rapid scoping review.

Somerville M. Curran JA, Dol J Boulos, Saxinger L, Doroshenko A, Hastings S, Reynolds B, Gallant AJ, Shin HD, Wong H, Crowther D, Macdonald M, Martin-Misener R, Comeau J, McCulloch, Tricco AC.

BMJ Global Health. 2021 December; 11 (12) (e055781) 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-055781

Treatment of moderate to severe respiratory COVID-19: a cost-utility analysis

Congly S.E., Varughese R.A., Brown C.E., Clement F.M., Saxinger L.

Scientific Reports. 2021 December; 11 (1) 10.1038/s41598-021-97259-7

A multi-factorial observational study on sequential fecal microbiota transplant in patients with medically refractory clostridioides difficile infection

Monaghan T.M., Duggal N.A., Rosati E., Griffin R., Hughes J., Roach B., Yang D.Y., Wang C., Wong K., Saxinger L., Pucic-Bakovic M., Vuckovic F., Klicek F., Lauc G., Tighe P., Mullish B.H., Blanco J.M., McDonald J.A.K., Marchesi J.R., Xue N., Dottorini T., Acharjee A., Franke A., Li Y., Wong G.K.S., Polytarchou C., Yau T.O., Christodoulou N., Hatziapostolou M., Wang M., Russell L.A., Kao D.H.

Cells. 2021 November; 10 (11) 10.3390/cells10113234

A multi-factorial observational study on sequential fecal microbiota transplant in patients with medically refractory clostridioides difficile infection

Monaghan T.M., Duggal N.A., Rosati E., Griffin R., Hughes J., Roach B., Yang D.Y., Wang C., Wong K., Saxinger L., Pucic-Bakovic M., Vuckovic F., Klicek F., Lauc G., Tighe P., Mullish B.H., Blanco J.M., McDonald J.A.K., Marchesi J.R., Xue N., Dottorini T., Acharjee A., Franke A., Li Y., Wong G.K.S., Polytarchou C., Yau T.O., Christodoulou N., Hatziapostolou M., Wang M., Russell L.A., Kao D.H.

Open Access. 2021 November; 10 (11) 10.3390/cells10113234

Impact of a reported beta-lactam allergy on cefazolin administration in surgical prophylaxis: Cefazolin is still best, but is it given.

Hoang HL, Crick KC, Chen JZ, Fryters SR, Chandran AU, Tse-Chang AW, Williams DC, Myroniuk TW, Yeung RO, Campbell-Scherer DC, Saxinger LM

Official Journal of the Assocition of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada. 2021 September; 6 (1):28 doi:10.3138/jammi.6.s1.abst

Review of surgical antibiotic prophylaxis practice in adult urology procedures: Opportunities for antimicrobial stewardship collaboration.

Official Journal of the Assocition of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada. 2021 September; 6 (1):28-29 10.3138/jammi.6.s1.abst

Co-designing to improve practice in treating urinary tract infections: A case study of reducing inappropriate antibiotic treatment.

Noel G, Pasay D, Campbell-Scherer D, Saxinger L.

Visible Language. 2021 September; 55 (1):67-96 doi.org/10.34314/vl.v55i1.4605

Audit of surgical antibiotic prophylaxis in orthopedic surgery with particular focus on duration of prophylaxis

Fryters SR, Chen JZ, Chandran AU, Hoang HL, Saxinger LM, Crick KC, Myroniuk TW, Williams DC, Yeung RO, Campbell-Scherer D, Tse-Chang AW

Official Journal of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada,. 2021 September; 6 (1):30 doi:10.3138/jammi.6.s1.abst

Audit of surgical antibiotic prophylaxis in obstetrical and gynecological surgery.

Fryters SR, Chen JZ, Chandran AU, Hoang HL, Saxinger LM, Crick KC, Myroniuk TW, Williams DC, Yeung RO, Campbell-Scherer D.

Official Journal of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada,. 2021 September; 6 (1):51 . doi:10.3138/jammi.6.s1.abst

One Health Evaluation of Antimicrobial Use and Resistance Surveillance: A Novel Tool for Evaluating Integrated, One Health Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Surveillance Programs

Haworth-Brockman M., Saxinger L.M., Miazga-Rodriguez M., Wierzbowski A., Otto S.J.G.

Front Public Health. 2021 August; 9 10.3389/fpubh.2021.693703

. Examination of selection, timing, and duration of surgical prophylaxis for vascular procedures at a major Canadian vascular surgery centre.

Hoang HL, Winkelaar GB, Crick KC, Chen JZ, Fryters SR, Chandran AU, Williams DC, Myroniuk TW, Yeung RO, Campbell-Scherer D, Saxinger LM

Official Journal of the Assocition of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada. 2021 August; 6 (1):29-30 doi:10.3138/jammi.6.s1.abst

One Health Evaluation of Antimicrobial Use and Resistance Surveillance: A Novel Tool for Evaluating Integrated, One Health Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Surveillance Programs

Haworth-Brockman M., Saxinger L.M., Miazga-Rodriguez M., Wierzbowski A., Otto S.J.G.

Frontiers in Public Health. 2021 August; 9 (ecollection 2021) 10.3389/fpubh.2021.693703

COVID-19 epidemiology in Canada from January to December 2020: the pre-vaccine era

FACETS. 2021 May; https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2021-0029

COVID-19 epidemiology in Canada from January to December 2020: The pre-vaccine era

Waldner D., Harrison R., Johnstone J., Saxinger L., Webster D., Sligl W.

FACETS. 2021 May; 6 10.1139/FACETS-2020-0081

Histoplasmosis acquired in Alberta, Canada: an epidemiological and genomic study

Dingle T.C., Croxen M.A., Fathima S., Shokoples S., Sonpar A., Saxinger L., Schwartz I.S.

The Lancet Microbe. 2021 May; 2 (5):e191-e197 10.1016/S2666-5247(20)30229-9

Informing COVID-19 vaccination priorities based on the prevalence of risk factors among adults in Canada

Finlay A. McAlister, Tracey Bushnik, Alexander A. Leung and Lynora Saxinger

CANADIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL. 2021 April; 193 (17):E617-E621 10.1503/cmaj.210529

A quality audit of surgical antibiotic prophylaxis timing, redosing, and post-operative dosing practices at five hospital sites: The devil is in the details.

Saxinger LM, Williams DC, Crick KC, Chen JZ, Hoang HL, Fryters SR, Chandran AU, Myroniuk TW, Yeung RO, Campbell-Scherer D.

Official Journal of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada,. 2021 April; 6 (1):41-42 doi:10.3138/jammi.6.s1.abst

Assessment of surgical antimicrobial prophylaxis at a Canadian tertiary pediatric centre

Tse-Chang A, Saxinger L, Fryters S, Chen J, Chandran U, Hoang H, Crick K, Myroniuk T, Williams D, Yeung R, Campbell-Scherer D

Official Journal of the Assocition of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada. 2021 April; 6 (1):30-31 doi:10.3138/jammi.6.s1.abst

Health system impacts of SARS-CoV - 2 variants of concern: a rapid review

Dol J., Boulos L., Somerville M., Saxinger L., Doroshenko A., Hastings S., Reynolds B., Gallant A., Shin H.D., Wong H., Crowther D., Macdonald M., Martin-Misener R., McCulloch H., Tricco A.C., Curran J.A.

BMC Health Services Research. 2021 April; 22 (1):544 10.1186/s12913-022-07847-0

Free-living amoebae and other neglected protistan pathogens: Health emergency signals?

Angelici M.C., Walochnik J., Calderaro A., Saxinger L., Dacks J.B.

European Journal of Protistology. 2021 February; 77 10.1016/j.ejop.2020.125760

COVID-19 screening of asymptomatic patients admitted through emergency departments in Alberta: a prospective quality-improvement study

Pietro Ravani, Lynora Saxinger, Uma Chandran, Kevin Fonseca, Stephanie Murphy, Eddy Lang, Laura McDougall, Braden Manns

CANADIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL. 2020 December; 8 (4):E887-E894 10.9778/cmajo.20200191

Free-living amoebae and other neglected protistan pathogens: Health emergency signals?

Maria Cristina Angelici, Julia Walochnik, Adriana Calderaro, Lynora Saxinger, Joel Dacks

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PROTISTOLOGY. 2020 November; 77 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejop.2020.125760