Brenden Hursh

BSc, MD, FRCPC, MHSc

Investigator, BC Children's Hospital

The overarching goal of my academic program is to connect health innovation with patient-centered care. This directly aligns with my clinical focus, which is to provide excellent care for families of children with long-term endocrine health needs, across a variety of geographic and socioeconomic settings. Specifically, in my academic program, I hope to support a sustainable and innovative health-care system while thinking outside the boundaries of typical health-care provision for our families. This has led me to spend my efforts promoting adjustments to health-care provision across atypical health-care settings such as at school, at camp, and care closer to home.

Within the development and assessment of clinical programs for children with type 1 diabetes, I have led the development of a diabetes telehealth program at BC Children's Hospital. This program provides improved access to diabetes specialist care for children across the province. My interest in this area has led to recent research assessing the impact of the transition to virtual care during the pandemic on children and parents, and I have been able to report on the experience of families in receiving virtual care for both diabetes and gender care. I currently have underway a mixed-methods assessment of the experiences of health-care providers with virtual care, as I hope to add the provider voice into the conversation about how to best design our future virtual care.

I support Nursing Support Services in their delivery of diabetes care to more than 400 children across BC at school. I have a specific interest in the development and assessment of diabetes care for children in the school setting. I have been a part of two large-scale evaluations of the diabetes at school program in BC, and this work has supported integration of continuous glucose monitoring at school.

Finally, I have a clinical interest and specialized training in the care of transgender youth. I provide leadership and education across BC and beyond in this dynamic and emerging area of medicine, and I have the aim of increasing the capacity of health-care providers to provide high-quality gender affirming care.