In this podcast, we talk with Dr. Sarah Keating. As an anatomic pathologist for more than 35 years, Sarah worked on staff at a number of hospitals in Ontario as well as at Ontario Forensic Pathology Services. She is recently retired but is passionate about learning as much as possible about tick borne diseases in order to help improve the access to care for suffering patients. She maintains her affiliation with the University of Toronto as an Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology. Sarah has been a member of the CanLyme board since 2022 and she is also an active member of ILADS – the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society.
Sarah is committed to spreading awareness of the potential causative role of tick-borne diseases in mental illness, promoting education of Canadian health care practitioners and policy makers in tick-borne diseases, and promoting the role of tissue diagnosis to increase our understanding of these diseases.
Topics discussed
1:25 How Dr. Keating became interested in becoming a pathologist
2:20 What being a pathologist entails
3:06 What led Dr. Keating to be interested in Lyme disease
4:13 How pathology and Lyme disease intersect, and what a biobank is
5:38 Access to new information to Lyme for medical professionals
6:10 The importance of curiosity in medicine and the troubles of misinformation
7:09 ILADS conference in 2024, and Dr. Keating’s role at the conference for CanLyme
8:55 Support for healthcare practitioners who treat Lyme through CanLyme
10:12 The most helpful takeaways from ILADS conference 2024 and the trouble with Canadian Lyme disease testing
11:12 Differences in international standards for diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease
12:37 The role of climate change in the spread of Lyme disease
13:45 The activities that CanLyme is currently running
14:14 The potential of tick borne diseases in mental illnesses
16:35 What keeps Dr. Keating motivated
17:45 Dr. Keating’s suggestions for those who have been recently diagnosed with Lyme disease
Get a tick removal kit
CanLyme’s Tick Removal Kit has everything you need to properly remove and store a tick for further identification and testing, and is easy to pack and find in your backpack, purse, glove box, first aid kit and in your home.
In this episode, Sarah speaks with Canadian entomologist Janet Sperling, who specializes in tick microbiomes. Janet fills us in on some of the important research happening in Canada right now regarding ticks and Lyme disease.
CanLyme is excited to kick off May which is Lyme Awareness Month! In this episode, we introduce a Canadian tick map designed by Justin Wood. Justin is the CEO and founder of Geneticks laboratory in Ontario, where he tests ticks from across Canada for many tick-borne pathogens. For the past several years, Justin has been…
We turn our gaze northward to Thunder Bay, Ontario to chat with entomologist Dr. Ken Deacon. While working on a contract with the Thunder Bay District Health Unit, he saw the first wood tick in the Thunder Bay area in 2003. He then saw the first black-legged tick in 2005 and has continued to follow…
Researchers have compiled close to 2,000 responses from women who say medical personnel have not taken their problems seriously. We discuss this challenge and how it impacts chronic health conditions like Lyme disease.
Funding grants for healthcare practitioners are available now!