True Patriot Love - TPL On The Road： St John's Newfoundland ft Dr Liam Kelly

00:00:00.000 the East Coast tour continues on true patriot love and today we're in st.

00:00:09.560 John's and we're lucky enough to have dr. Liam Kelly welcome and you are the

00:00:15.240 director of research and innovation for health services Newfoundland and Labrador

00:00:19.440 yes I get that right yeah I just Liam for okay thank you thank you I'll call

00:00:25.520 doc if that's okay so i was traveling in yesterday and i was uh reading up on your bio very impressive

00:00:33.280 and you're you're homegrown i am yeah yeah you've grown and raised saint john's yeah in gander

00:00:40.240 in gander no no mount pearl yeah sorry yeah okay yeah and you grew up here and your your specialty

00:00:48.320 so what i and you can tell me about it because you you lived it but um you started off kind of

00:00:54.080 with a really keen interest in kinesiology and physiology that's right because of your wrestling

00:00:59.920 background and and so is that what got you into i'm always amazed because you know the dedication

00:01:06.800 it takes to get into um the medical health business is so interesting to me because it is

00:01:13.680 you know it has to be a passion a commitment and something that catches you that brings you in

00:01:18.160 because you know how much time do you spend in schooling oh yeah well a long a long time right

00:01:23.840 so so all of it so kinesiology was an easy choice for me because sport was so important to me and

00:01:30.240 always sport performance and how do you get better playing baseball um as you said with wrestling

00:01:35.200 and stuff like that so um yeah so that was my undergraduate degree was focused on you know

00:01:40.960 human performance sport performance um studied kinesiology and then went on did a master of

00:01:46.800 science in exercise and environmental physiology again with that kind of sport mindset but quickly

00:01:54.560 you know living in in a small province in the eastern part of the the country sport is important

00:02:02.000 but the bigger challenges are related to health and and well-being so i wanted then to take what

00:02:08.400 i've learned and what i've developed from from sport performance to try to apply to clinical

00:02:12.320 populations and that's why i chose to go into medicine yeah well you and i so you finished

00:02:18.960 i started so i i played football yeah and uh i decided at one point i wanted to go into sports

00:02:26.400 medicine okay so that was my big thing i was going to sort of go down that path and i got going um

00:02:33.200 and i started off at u of t that's where i was going to school and i went and did a work term

00:02:38.880 at northwestern old northwestern hospital in toronto and uh i thought you know definitely

00:02:44.480 i was going to start working with athletes and i was going to be doing all this stuff

00:02:47.920 i went in and they actually put me in with stroke victims okay so i had to do rehab with stroke

00:02:54.400 victims uh mostly elderly you know and uh it was a tough six months i gotta tell you and then

00:03:02.400 you know for a lot of reasons i didn't finish and it was i would have loved to have finished

00:03:07.200 but for financial reasons you know i i tore an acl playing football i had to kind of drop my

00:03:13.840 bursary and then quite frankly i'd go to work because you know there's a lot of reasons why

00:03:17.840 you don't make to the end of anything you do but but i ended up uh you know going another path but

00:03:23.520 you know i know the dedication that it takes to go but you have a keen interest you know you have

00:03:28.800 a keen interest always in the kinesiology and uh i was reading sort of between uh how people

00:03:35.440 function when they're dormant and how people function when they're moving and you've done a

00:03:40.560 lot of research in that totally yeah no it's very interesting to hear that sport medicine piece

00:03:45.280 because i was thinking along that that same lines right and i had the opportunity when i was doing

00:03:50.720 my phd to work with stroke as well right oh wow yeah so hard yeah stroke ms uh patients and and

00:03:57.120 a lot of the the challenges that that they have around functional independence um and that's

00:04:02.960 exactly what we did yeah so they have hemiparesis yeah um so mobility limitations and most of my phd

00:04:11.600 work was focused on translating sport performance and being able to help people with stroke and ms

00:04:16.640 recover wow functionally uh along that that ways there's there's uh one of the publications that

00:04:22.480 i'm you know most proud of is actually an opinion paper that i wrote with um my uh my supervisor

00:04:29.360 Dr. Michelle Plowman around sport like periodization of training right yeah so models so in in rehab

00:04:38.640 world it's usually we have a period of time about three months after stroke people are heavily doing

00:04:45.280 rehabilitation then people get discharged right but trying to adopt more of a sport performance

00:04:50.320 model where you're have a longer term training plan to be able to increase functional uh recovery

00:04:55.600 was was one of the things that we worked on yeah no that's terrific and i know we have a group

00:05:00.080 that's so one of our businesses in char i mentioned to you we actually uh give heavily to charity

00:05:05.920 yeah it's built basically on a charitable model and one of the charities actually deals with with

00:05:10.960 ms people and char and i have actually been out to quite a few sessions where they have them

00:05:16.240 boxing they have them doing functions before they're you know as they're progressing to try

00:05:21.360 to keep their motor skills going and you know as they're as they're you know as they're progressing

00:05:26.720 through the disease right and that's that's such a hard thing to watch but but they're so it's

00:05:32.000 amazing to watch them because they're so resilient and the things they do and uh really it's amazing

00:05:37.920 and i you know it's interesting when i went to northwestern hospital so i i went in and you

00:05:43.040 mentioned you know the stroke victims uh especially elderly people tend to have like a huge paralysis

00:05:48.720 in their limbs right you know and so they they get very stiff so you have to massage them and

00:05:53.920 you have to try to get motion to get you know blood flow and everything going in and we were

00:05:58.960 doing that and it's painful yeah right there you know there's a lot of pain to it so we used to

00:06:04.080 sing and i always remember that as you know we used to sing all these songs yeah to get their

00:06:08.800 mind off it which kind of you know it's it's it's you know you go through life my dad owned a moving

00:06:14.480 company and and i used to work with him quite a bit and furniture was quite heavy when i i'm

00:06:21.360 turning 60 now so furniture was all made mostly steel uh and it was very heavy when i was doing

00:06:27.680 it with my dad not today like kia furniture much lighter today yeah so so you know we used to go

00:06:33.680 lift furniture and we used to put the lifting straps under the furniture and the fridges and

00:06:37.920 and stuff.

00:06:38.760 And they used to sing.

00:06:41.400 So as we would lift, they would sing

00:06:43.800 to lift the furniture

00:06:45.400 because it was so heavy up and down the stairs.

00:06:47.420 So they didn't focus on the pain of all the lifting.

00:06:49.980 Yeah, so it's interesting, I was doing that

00:06:52.900 and we'd sing along and the people would sing

00:06:55.180 and it was quite a, the atmosphere was,

00:06:58.180 it started off tough

00:06:59.160 because they didn't want to get going with us.

00:07:01.500 But over time, as we sang,

00:07:02.940 we spent time with them during the day,

00:07:05.360 they were happy, but it took time.

00:07:07.280 It's like anything else.

00:07:08.220 And, you know, I was looking, it's interesting

00:07:11.380 because I was kind of thinking about the show today

00:07:13.620 and I was thinking, you know, medicine itself

00:07:16.380 is kind of capsulated in that, you know, there's,

00:07:20.140 it takes so much time to develop something

00:07:22.680 and to research it and get it to market.

00:07:25.660 And, you know, you have to be patient

00:07:28.520 because the trials and the testing and failing

00:07:32.360 and succeeding and going for approvals and regulatory.

00:07:37.820 And I know, you know, you're, as I was coming in today,

00:07:42.020 you know, you guys are getting a reputation

00:07:43.980 of being really good at that.

00:07:45.680 Like, and I, in my hat off to you,

00:07:48.320 because, you know, when the word starts to get out

00:07:50.780 that the province is kind of starting to lead the way,

00:07:55.200 you know, tell me a little about that.

00:07:56.480 Cause you know, that's you, you know,

00:07:58.120 that's your leadership and your team.

00:08:00.260 How are you guys managing that right now?

00:08:02.000 Yeah, so that burden of evidence, right?

00:08:04.140 When you start thinking about coming up

00:08:05.860 with a new medical intervention

00:08:07.860 or layering things on behavioral,

00:08:10.520 like singing and stuff like that.

00:08:12.680 When you're doing things like this,

00:08:14.640 you need to demonstrate that as, first of all, safe.

00:08:17.700 And then at some point,

00:08:18.940 it's gonna create meaningful outcomes for patients.

00:08:24.580 From an innovation perspective, as you said,

00:08:26.600 now within the hospital system,

00:08:29.760 now we've set up our living lab.

00:08:32.000 which is supposed to be a real world test bed

00:08:34.240 for new ideas and concepts, right?

00:08:37.200 And basically we say that no idea is a bad idea.

00:08:41.240 Let's try and see what works.

00:08:44.620 But you see the thing with it,

00:08:47.280 trying and seeing what happens

00:08:48.760 is a lot of the challenges that you get to adopting.

00:08:52.400 You need to have a structured approach

00:08:53.720 in terms of how you introduce technology

00:08:56.380 or process innovations into the system

00:08:59.120 and to be able to test them in a way

00:09:01.060 that Jerry will answer very specific questions.

00:09:03.540 Is it safe?

00:09:05.180 Will people use it if it's brought into the system?

00:09:08.120 Can we feasibly measure outcomes and drive impact on that?

00:09:12.460 And what is the effect of that solution

00:09:15.300 if you're gonna embed it into the hospital system?

00:09:20.080 So that's largely what we've done.

00:09:21.360 We've developed within our Living Lab model

00:09:23.960 a specific approach to being able to bring innovations in.

00:09:28.540 Wow, I like the living lab.

00:09:30.480 Yeah, you know, and are you finding people coming?

00:09:33.720 So it's interesting, I find, and again,

00:09:36.020 that charitable business I'm referring to,

00:09:38.260 I find it interesting,

00:09:39.400 the more sort of innovative things I did in that business,

00:09:42.300 because when I was, I came back to Canada in 2011,

00:09:48.400 I was living in the States for 12 years.

00:09:50.600 I came back to Canada, started it up,

00:09:52.260 and all of a sudden, everyone in the industry kind of came,

00:09:55.740 and they showed up at my front door eating

00:09:57.840 and hanging out to try to figure out what I was doing.

00:10:00.080 Are you finding people starting to,

00:10:02.560 as you're developing the living life?

True Patriot Love - July 25, 2026

TPL On The Road： St John's Newfoundland ft Dr Liam Kelly

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