Julie Kromm | Improving patient outcomes through research and medical education

“I’m in awe at how dedicated the team is to providing excellent, individualized, patient-centred care and advancing stroke care as a whole,” says Dr. Julie Kromm, MD, about the world-renowned Calgary Stroke Program. “Everyone has such a strong drive to move the field forward by continuing to dig for answers that will help each and every patient.”

And Kromm is no exception. She’s a clinical assistant professor in the departments of Critical Care Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences at the Cumming School of Medicine (CSM), a neurointensivist at the Foothills Medical Centre and a key member of the Calgary Stroke Program. She’s highly-trained in neuromonitoring modalities — the various ways in which brain activity can be monitored — provides care to acute stroke patients, conducts research to improve patient outcomes and uses her specialized training to teach others.

“My passion lies with medical education,” explains Kromm who has a master teacher appointment with the CSM’s Undergraduate Medical Education program, has developed a postgraduate neurocritical care training program in Calgary which is set to launch in July 2021, and is involved in continuing medical education initiatives through the Neurocritical Care Society. “I then take that passion and try to integrate it throughout my research.”

Her current focus is on the logistics of continuous multimodal neuromonitoring of critically ill patients — monitoring that allows physicians to detect and manage ongoing brain injury. She hopes to find ways to implement continuous neuromonitoring in ways that benefit patients and are resource friendly.

“Right now, I’m interested in seeing if we can train nurses at the bedside to screen continuous neuromonitoring modalities in real-time,” explains Kromm, who’s also a member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute and co-lead of its Neurocritical Care Research Team.

“If we can detect worrisome findings on neuromonitring in real-time, we can implement crucial interventions in a timely manner, that will ultimately improve patient outcomes.”