Dawa Samdup
- Clinician-scientist, KGHRI
- Asistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Queen’s University
- Developmental Pediatrician, KidsInclusive, Kingston Health Sciences Centre, Hotel Dieu Kingston site
- Cerebral palsy
- Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
- Neurodevelopmental disorders in early childhood
Dr. Samdup is a graduate of CMCH, Vellore, and completed her Pediatric residency at JIPMER, Pondicherry. She obtained her FRCSC in Pediatrics from Queen’s University and completed her Fellowship training in Developmental and Behavioural Pediatrics from McGill University before joining the faculty at Queen’s University.
She provides consultations and speciality services for various childhood neurodevelopmental disorders in Kingston and runs community clinics in Brockville and Smith Falls. She is involved in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching at the University. She is a member of the National FASD stakeholder group and the physician representative of the Ontario Association of Children’s Rehabilitation Services (OACRS) She has a special clinical interest in social pediatrics, early childhood development, and childhood disabilities.
- Fellowship, Developmental Pediatrics
- FRCSC Pediatrics
- MBBS, MD
Dr. Dawa's current research includes the following:
Fostering the transition to a patient-oriented research culture - The first step of the project, which has been completed, involved education and four webinar series to provide overview of patient-oriented research to investigators and patient partners, with the goal of developing a patient-oriented research culture within the department. The next step of the project is engaging patient/parent partners to identify priority research areas to improve health and wellbeing of people living with neurodevelopmental disabilities.
Evaluating the impact of exergaming on physical activity and cardiovascular fitness in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Phase I – feasibility) - In this first phase, a small group of children with ASD will take part in a six-week, in-home exergaming program developed by EQUIS Lab in the School of Computing at Queen’s University, originally for children with Cerebral Palsy. As well as collecting before-and-after data on fitness and health-related quality of life, in the next phase, we will engage families as research partners to help us design and conduct a much larger study of exergaming and its impact on physical activity and fitness (and other outcomes of interest). If shown to be effective, exergaming could form an innovative home-, school-, and/or clinic-based rehabilitation therapy for children with ASD.
The Childhood Cerebral Palsy (CP) Integrated Neuroscience Discovery Network - CP-NET - Dr. Samdup is the site investigator for two Ontario Brain Institute-funded multi-centre research on Hemi-CP and CP-NET. She is also a co-investigator with the faculty of Health/Biomedical and Molecular science on the use of KINARM, looking at quantitative assessment of upper limb sensory motor function in children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) and Cerebral Palsy.
She has worked collaboratively in various research projects with other clinicians, students and researchers on FASD, system navigation for families with ASD children, and developing early red flags and questionnaires on feeding and identification of developmental disorders.
Dr. Samdup’s research interests include Cerebral Palsy, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD), and neurodevelopmental disorders in early childhood.
