Healthcare Hero: Riyana Babul-Hirji

Riyana Babul-Hirji is a Genetic Counsellor at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto, as well as an Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Assistant Program Director of the M.Sc. program in Genetic Counselling at the University of Toronto. As a Genetic Counsellor, Riyana provides information and support to patients and their families who may be at risk of a genetic condition, and helps them adapt to their condition. Her role at SickKids involves assisting children, parents, and families in understanding their genetics enabling them to make informed decisions that align with their values, while also providing important emotional and psychological support. Over the past year, the pandemic has disrupted healthcare delivery, including genetic counselling, and Genetic Counsellors like Riyana quickly adopted a new approach to meeting the needs of their patients by transitioning fully to remote counselling. Her greatest lesson from this time has come from her positive experiences with genetic counselling virtual care, and its value post-pandemic in increasing access to counselling services.

As an educator and Assistant Program Director, Riyana also helped to pivot the genetic counselling graduate program to an online model during the pandemic. During this time, she helped to introduce innovative teaching strategies to ensure that students continued to safely gain the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in their future careers. One of her greatest challenges during the pandemic was to remain vigilant of the changing COVID-19 guidelines, in order to ensure the safety of everyone that she supported - including students, faculty members, and patients. Riyana’s advice is during times like this in particular, it is important to continue to make self-care a priority. For Riyana, this includes running and taking the time to sit down and enjoy some toast and chai.

As part of the Healthcare Heroes initiative, we will be featuring healthcare workers in the Jamat until Sunday, July 11. Stay tuned!