2021 Continuing Contribution Award

Professor Emerita Angela Busch (Ph.D., Community Health Science, Calgary) received award recognition from professional associations and journals from 2000 to 2015 for her research, leadership, and professional development both before and immediately after her retirement as Professor Emerita on January 1, 2015, from the University of Saskatchewan’s School of Physical Therapy (now Rehabilitation Science), College of Medicine. She also returned temporarily as its Acting Director (August 2015 – March 2016) when the Director was seconded as Vice-Dean Research. However, her volunteer and unpaid continuing contributions to building international capacity in rehabilitation medicine, especially in Honduras, have been her outstanding achievement since July 2015.

Professor Busch has joined with community partners there and with other international stakeholders to lead the development of local capacity for rehabilitation care, implement several interprofessional health education initiatives, and facilitate humanitarian aid in the wake of two hurricanes and the CoVID-19 pandemic. After assessing on her first trip to Trujillo, Honduras (population about 30,000), the lack of university-based physical therapy or occupational programs there and the scarcity of rehabilitation services, Professor Busch facilitated contacts between directors of a local hospital and of a technical institute, health care workers, local community leaders, Colombian physiotherapists, and USask Continuing Education in Rehabilitation Science, in order to develop training services and mentorship.

On her second trip, she led development of an informal Network of Rehab Workers of the Americas (https://rra-nrwa.com) and of a visiting professor program supported by USask Continuing Education in Rehabilitation Science. This program had three iterations (2017, 2018, 2019), before the pandemic intervened. A research team from the University of Saskatchewan, Honduras, and Colombia, with Professor Busch as a principal investigator, submitted their first peer reviewed manuscript about their partnership in 2021.

As a retiree, Professor Busch has also mentored graduate students (including two from Columbia) in programs at the Universities of Saskatchewan and of Ottawa. In 2020 she led the RRA-NRWA Humanitarian Relief Project to help people forced into unemployment by pandemic lockdowns and curfews in Cortes, Honduras.  The Humanitarian Relief Project volunteers distributed food parcels to 364 families, subsequently has organized aid after Hurricanes Eta and Iota, and directed other humanitarian projects in this and other communities.