Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier, Laval Universite (Quebec)

After completing her doctoral studies in visual anthropology at Manchester University and at the Granada Center for Visual Anthropology in England, Alexandrine undertook two post-doctoral projects at Montreal University (2008-2010) and then Laval and York Universities (2010-2011). Her second postdoctoral project aimed at establishing theoretical and practical bases to develop an ethnography of image production. She recently produced a documentary film titled Golden Scars (2010:61 min.) funded in part by the National Film Board of Canada. Alexandrine’s TUTOR-PHC Project is titled “Perception of home based care: The experience of elderly women living under the poverty line”. A qualitative visual method, photovoice, will be used to better understand women’s experiences receiving care at home

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Michelle Skop-Dror, Wilfrid Laurier University (Ontario)

As a registered social worker, I have clinical experience working with individuals, families, and groups in both hospital and community settings in the field of mental health. I am currently a second year PhD student in the Faculty of Social Work at Wilfred Laurier University in Kitchener, Ontario. The idea for my dissertation research emerged through clinical practice coordinating health care services for female clients who had a diagnosis of fibromyalgia, a chronic illness. My plan for the TUTOR project involves exploring the ways in which narrative theory can be utilized to understand the illness experiences of women with fibromyalgia, as well as the perspectives of primary health care providers who work with this population. I am also interested in researching the efficacy of providing narrative therapy to women with fibromyalgia within primary health care settings. My hobbies include spending time with family and friends, writing and painting, biking and yoga, cooking and travelling.

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Sheila Garland, University of Calgary (Alberta)

My research has thus far focused on the evaluation of psychosocial interventions with the potential to improve physical and psychological outcomes for cancer patients and their families. Specifically, I have investigated the impact of Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) for reducing sleep disturbances. I also compared the MBSR intervention to a creative arts program for facilitating spirituality and post-traumatic growth. My Masters research looked at how a psychosocial retreat called “Tapestry” could impact the quality of life, distress, marital satisfaction and existential concerns of palliative cancer patients and their partners. For my doctoral research I am conducting a randomized trial comparing the effect of MBSR to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for the treatment of insomnia in individuals with cancer. I currently hold a research fellowship from the Psychosocial Oncology Research Training (PORT) initiative at McGill University and a strategic training fellowship from the Transdisciplinary Understanding & Training on Research-Primary Health Care initiative.

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Wendy V. Norman, University of British Columbia (B.C.)

Dr. Wendy V. Norman is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Family Practice at the University of British Columbia. She graduated from Queen's University at Kingston in 1985, is an active clinical teacher at UBC and leads the BC Contraception & Abortion Research Team (CART). Her research interests include abortion demographics, contraception health policy and health services delivery and family planning population health. Dr. Norman completed a CIHR Strategic Research Training Fellowship in Transdisciplinary Primary Care Research (2012), the UBC Clinician Scholar Program (2011), a Masters of Health Science (UBC 2004), a diploma in Tropical Medicine and International Health (Liverpool 1994), a residency in GP-anaesthesiology (UBC 1988) and currently leads the Canadian Contraception Access Research Team\Groupe de recherche sur l’accessibilité à la contraception (CART/GRAC).

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Carmen Thompson, University of Calgary (Alberta)

I am in my first year of the PhD program in Applied Psychology at the University of Calgary. Prior to this I completed Bachelors Degrees in Fine Art and Psychology and a Masters degree in Counseling Psychology. I have been involved in research studies on the following topics: the prevention of eating disorders, group medical visits for diabetes, the provision of health services for individuals living in poverty, ethical and economic considerations in the licensing and adoption of surgical devices into clinical practice, and group prenatal care for women with low income. Through my doctoral research I hope to gain a deeper understanding of factors influencing access to pre and postnatal care for women living in poverty, to highlight issues for consideration in the design of these services, and to evaluate the effects of integrated pre and postnatal programming on maternal and infant health and social outcomes.

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Natalia Yavich, McGill University (Quebec/Argentine)

Natalia is as a PhD Candidate in Social Sciences at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. She completed an International Program for Development Evaluation Training Diploma at Carleton University as well as received a Masters in Public Health and a BA in Anthropological Sciences. In addition to her studies, she is also a researcher at the Instituto de la Salud Juan Lazarte and is a professor of the Master in Management of Health Systems and Services at the Univerisidad Nacional de Rosario. She is a principal researcher and co-researcher in research projects on primary health care analysis and evaluation, health governance, and food security with the support of the International Development Research Centre, United Nations, Pan-American Health Organization, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica, Ministerio de Salud de la Nación, Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada. She has worked as a consultant of international and academic organizations such as International Development Research Centre, Centre for Research on Health Economics, Social and Health Care Management, and Università Carlo Cattaneo. Natalia’s primary research interest is in PHC evaluation and the use of research for decision making. The title of her TUTOR-PHC project, which will be part of her post-doctoral studies at McGill University, is “PHC Evaluation in Latin America: perspectives, achievements and challenges.”

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Liz Muggah, University of Ottawa

Liz is a family physician, currently working in Ottawa. She recently completed a Masters of Public Health at Harvard and has just started as a clinical research fellow at the University of Ottawa Department of Family Medicine and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. She has worked as a primary care physician and researcher in Canada, the United States and Switzerland, focusing on the care of vulnerable populations. Her TUTOR research question is "What is the optimal number of patients a family doctor should care for?".

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Mary Forhan, McMaster University

Mary is a certified occupational therapist (OT) with 20 years of clinical experience. Mary has specifically worked in acute medicine, acute psychiatry, eating disorders and in the area of obesity management. Mary was one of the first occupational therapists in Canada to describe the role of OT in the area of obesity management. Mary earned a PhD in Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University in 2010 where she studied the impact of severe obesity on the participation in the occupations of everyday living. Mary is currently working on projects exploring the impact of a bariatric suite on a medical unit on the safety and satisfaction of patients and their care providers; and the impact of workshops about obesity on the beliefs and attitudes of health professionals. Mary is an assistant clinical professor in the School of Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University and is currently the program coordinator for the Master of Health Management Program working collaboratively with the DeGroote School of Business. Mary has also worked as a project coordinator for the first Canadian Summit on Weight Bias and Discrimination with the Canadian Obesity Network. Mary will be exploring factors that contribute to treatment adherence for patients with obesity in primary care for her TUTOR-PHC project.

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Alisa Naiman, University of Toronto

Alisa is a family physician providing comprehensive primary care in Toronto. In addition to her family practice, Alisa is a second year PhD student in the Department of Health Policy Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. Prior to medical school, she completed a Masters of Health Science in Community Health and Epidemiology at the University of Toronto. Her previous research interest has focused on second hand smoke. Previous work has focused on the impact of antismoking legislation on hospital admissions for cardiovascular and respiratory conditions and exploring the relationship between anti-smoking legislation and self-reported second hand exposure. Her current research interest involves investigating the relationship between various primary delivery models and financial incentives as a mechanism to improve health outcomes. When not working, Alisa enjoys playing soccer and cycling and spending time with family and friends.

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Julie Easley, University of New Brunswick

Julie Easley is a PhD candidate in the Interdisciplinary Program at the University of New Brunswick. Her background is in medical anthropology and she is now combining a social science and nursing approach for her doctoral program. Throughout her studies, Julie has also been working as a research assistant for the past 8 years at the Dalhousie University Family Medicine Teaching Unit located at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital in Fredericton, NB. Her TUTOR-PHC project is an extension of her current doctoral study which examines the disclosure patterns of young adult cancer survivors and the impact these disclosure decisions have had on their social interactions and environments, both personally and professionally. Julie’s goal is to finish analyzing the data collected for her doctoral research and to use the findings to help develop a proposal for post-doctoral studies focusing specifically on the experiences and attitudes of young adult cancer survivors in relation to provider-patient communication within the primary care setting, from diagnosis to follow-up care.

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Susan Champion Sommerfeldt, University of Alberta

I am currently a PhD student at the University of Alberta and a faculty lecturer in the Faculty of Nursing. My teaching areas have been in research methodologies, interprofessional team development, community health nursing, and foundational nursing courses using context-based learning approaches. My MN explored interdisciplinary approaches to children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) and my doctoral work continues the theme of interprofessional healthcare. My TUTOR topic will extend this interest through exploring the relational work of effective patient care teams using arts-informed methods, specifically applied theatre. Currently, I’m involved in research that has developed and implemented three interprofessional clinical learning units in acute care, rehabilitation, and long-term care sites, as well as other student focused interprofessional education initiatives and projects. Past research includes a study of Canadian Aboriginal youth HIV testing and care, and a project investigating the integration of midwifery services into the Alberta health care system. My life revolves around my family in all their busyness and my own interests in music, baking, and travelling.

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Laura Housden , University of British Columbia

Laura Housden is a family practice nurse practitioner and doctoral student at the UBC School of Nursing. She was one of two students who were awarded a Junior Graduate Studentship Award (JGS) for "Health Services Research" through the Michael Smith competition for the student trainee competition and is also an Advanced Practice Nursing Chair student. Laura will complete this work for her PhD under the supervision of Dr. Sabrina Wong who is an associate professor and faculty at the School of Nursing and Centre for Health Services and Policy Research at UBC. Her doctoral work is entitled: “An Innovative Approach to Patient care, Examining the Role of the Nurse Practitioner in Primary Care Group Medical Visits.” The overall purpose of this study is to examine the role of NPs in providing primary care group medical visits and determine if group medical visits with nurse practitioners are associated with positive patient outcomes.

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Chris Wong, University of Auckland (New Zealand)

Dr Chris Wong is a New Zealand born Chinese medical graduate of Otago University, New Zealand (NZ). He has a Diploma of Obstetrics and Musculoskeletal medicine and a Certificate in Clinical Education. From his beginnings as the son of a grocer in Wellington (NZ), he now resides in Auckland, having been working in a group general practice for the last 22 years. Chris has had a passion for teaching medical students from his practice for over 10 years and was delighted to be appointed as a part-time senior lecturer with the Department of General Practice, University of Auckland in 2009. Chris has been instrumental in implementing “GPOPS” (General Practice office patient simulations), a new teaching method for year four medical students in 2010. Chris looks forward to using the TUTOR-PHC program to help foster some research skills and improve his ability as a clinical teacher, which he enjoys the most. Chris does vasectomies and his interests include, tennis, contract bridge and alto saxophone. He shares his love of dancing salsa and ceroc with his wife Janet with whom he has three growing up children aged 18 to 22 years.

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Saima Ali, University of Southampton (UK)

I am currently a research fellow in the Primary Medical Care group at the University of Southampton. My interests include psychological aspects of chronic conditions in primary care, particularly common mental disorders and diabetes. The majority of my education and work experience was spent in the city of Leicester in the UK which allowed me to witness, first-hand, a number of inequalities which exist in terms of the prevalence, management of, and outcomes of depression and common non communicable conditions in different ethnic groups. I feel Health Psychology has a vital role to play within multidisciplinary teams involved with interventions aimed at both the prevention of chronic conditions in primary care (e.g. behavioural interventions in ‘high risk’ groups) as well as the management of conditions (e.g. changing patient and health care professional behaviour). My PhD involved a mixed method programme of work to examine ethnic differences in the prevalence, recognition and clinical impact of depression in people with and without type 2 diabetes. As a TUTOR-PHC trainee I hope to build on this work in order to develop psychological services within primary care to reduce disparities in depression and diabetes care.

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TUTOR-PHC 2010-2011 Trainees

Rachelle Ashcroft is currently a PhD student at Wilfrid Laurier University. She graduated with a BSW and a MSW (Manitoba ’95 & ‘05). She has worked as a social worker within a tertiary care hospital setting in the areas of neurosurgery, trauma, oncology, nephrology, and mental health. She has also worked in the areas of HIV and community mental health. Her areas of interest include health policy, epistemologies of health, interdisciplinary collaboration in health practice, and the intersection between personal lives and the larger systems that organize social life.

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I am originally from a small country town called Holmfirth in West Yorkshire, UK. I did my BSc in psychology and sports science at the University of Birmingham, before moving to Bath for a year to complete a MSc in health psychology. After a year out being a research assistant at an eating disorders unit back in Birmingham, I returned to Bath in 2001 to complete a PhD related to the prevention of eating disorders. In 2005 I returned to the University of Birmingham to take up a research post in the department of Primary care and General practice where I still work today as a research fellow. My main role is as a trial manager on the TASMINH series of RCTs which investigate the role of self-management in the control of hypertension.

Out of work I enjoy walking and cycling in the countryside, eating out and meeting friends for drinks in the pub. My husband and I are hoping to run the Birmingham half marathon this year so I am currently trying to increase my running distances!

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Dr. Weihong Chen received her Ph.D in Nursing from the University of British Columbia in 2008. She joined UBC School of Nursing in the same year as a post-doctoral fellow supervised by Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc. Dr. Chen’s research interests focus on adolescent health issues, including adolescent health risk behaviors, health of immigrant youth, gender-culture intersection and its effects on adolescent health and development, survey data analysis, and research designs, especially mixed methods. Dr. Chen came to Canada in 2001 from Beijing, China. She earned her Master’s Degree in Nursing in her home country, and used to be a faculty at Beijing University School of Nursing.

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I was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. After completing high school, I completed an undergraduate honours degree psychology at the University of Calgary. Following completion of this degree I obtained a Master’s thesis in Clinical Psychology at the University of Calgary, and continued on to the Doctoral program. When I’m not busy doing school I love to travel, and enjoy great food. Given that I am half Caucasian and half Chinese, Chinese culture and food play a big part in my life.

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Philip Grandia was born and raised in Kamloops, British Columbia. Following high school, Philip joined the military and started his post-secondary education at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario. He graduated in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Economics. Upon graduation, Philip began five years of military service as an infantry officer with the Royal 22nd Regiment in Quebec City. In 2005, Philip started a second undergraduate degree at Dalhousie University in Halifax and in 2008 graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Psychology. In September of 2008, Philip was admitted to the clinical psychology doctoral program at the University of Ottawa. Philip is married and has two sons aged 1 and 3.

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Rita Hamoline is working in her second year as a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology, University of Saskatchewan. Her dissertation features a qualitative investigation of how primary care physicians create and maintain meaning in their work lives. Knowledge gained from this research will offer physicians insight into strategies used by colleagues to cope with job stress and to re-kindle meaning-making in their professional lives. This effort may lead to increased job satisfaction, retention of primary care physicians, a reduction of early retirement and decreased job burn out. A healthy physician work force has an immediate impact on the numbers of working physicians able to provide Canadian citizenry with accessible, timely and quality health care. Rita intends to broaden this research into a Canada wide study that will incorporate the creation of a web-based narrative-medicine portal through which health care professionals may engage in writing about their work experiences and the meaning inherent to that work as primary health caregivers.

Rita has worked as a Research Assistant on nationally funded research projects that include an interdisciplinary multi-phase study that queried the connections between cancer and aging. She is currently involved with two ongoing studies that investigate the impact of breast cancer in the lives of women. One is a national longitudinal mixed method study that measures the long-term effect of arm morbidities, namely lymphedema, reduced range-of-motion, and pain, after breast cancer treatment. She is a co-author on a pilot study to assess the effect of gentle yoga as a means of managing arm morbidities complications after women have completed breast cancer treatment.

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I am a first year PhD student in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia, supervised by Dr. Charlyn Black, the Co-Director of the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research. My general areas of interest include primary health care reform, especially at the provincial and national level, health care policy, and use of evidence to guide system-level health care policy and health service delivery. My dissertation is a mixed-method case study, guided by political science frameworks, which aims to (1) examine the history of attempts at PHC reform in Canada, focusing on changes at the legislative and policy levels; (2) characterize the impact of these changes on the PHC system; and (3) identify the structures and policies that are facilitators of or barriers to reform. My work has been funded by a Fellowship from the Western Regional Training Centre for Health Services Research and the UBC Faculty of Graduate Studies.

By way of background, I have a master’s degree in Epidemiology from the Department of Health Care and Epidemiology at UBC, and an Honours Bachelor of Science in Health Studies from Waterloo. Between degrees (and continuing part time during my PhD study), I am employed as a Health Economist for the Canadian Centre for Applied Research in Cancer Control. My work focuses on evaluating the cost-effectiveness of cancer programs provided by the BC Cancer Agency; the development of new standardized screening programs; and evidence informed methods for priority setting and resource allocation.

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Noah is a family physician, working part-time at Women’s College Hospital Family Practice Health Centre while pursuing advanced training in Clinical Epidemiology at the Department of Health Policy Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto.

In keeping with his generalist approach to clinical care, his research interests are broad, but all relate to the quality of care received by patients in primary care. Specifically, Noah is interested in developing and evaluating tools that help family physicians do ‘better’ for their patients, especially those with chronic disease. As an example, his thesis project is a cluster-randomized trial wherein family physicians will receive performance feedback describing the quality of care they are providing to their patients with ischemic heart disease and/or diabetes.

Noah believes that knowledge translation projects such as these are best approached from a multidisciplinary perspective; implementation science aiming to change physician behaviours should ideally stem from an understanding of theories of behavioural and/or organizational change and be evaluated using mixed methods. Noah enjoys travelling, sports, music, and occasionally getting some free time to spend with family and friends - preferably while eating something delicious.

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Farah McCrate is a consultant in the Department of Health and Community Services, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. She is also a part-time PhD student in the Clinical Epidemiology program administered through the Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University. Her undergraduate training, a BSc (Hons) in psychology, was completed at Memorial University in 1998, and her graduate training, an MSc in Health Psychology, was completed at the University of Bath, UK in 2000.

Subsequent to completing her MSc, Farah remained in the UK for four years and worked as a research officer on a European Commission funded project that was being carried out in collaboration with the World Health Organization and many other countries worldwide. In 2004 she returned to Newfoundland and, after a year of maternity leave, worked for two years at the Primary Healthcare Research Unit (PHRU) at Memorial University as a research coordinator and project manager. She remains a co-investigator on three projects occurring at the PHRU. Her research interests include aging, older populations, chronic disease, primary health care, health services delivery and health literacy.

Her current position as an Aging and Seniors Consultant requires her to support the development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the Provincial Healthy Aging Policy Framework. This role has provided experience and insight into working with policy-makers, and an understanding for the uses of research from the decision-maker perspective. Farah has recently accepted a new position as a Clinical Epidemiologist at the H. Bliss Murphy Cancer Centre in St. John’s and will be working in this capacity by the date of the symposium.

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I have been practicing as a midwife in Hamilton, Ontario since my graduation from the McMaster University Midwifery Education Programme. I hold an MA in Health Profession Education from the University of Toronto (OISE) and recently completed my PhD in Primary Health Care at the University of Sheffield in England. I spent time living in the UK and working as a Senior Lecturer in Midwifery during my doctoral studies. Currently, in addition to clinical practice, I work part time as a Lecturer in Midwifery at McMaster University. My research interests include interprofessional working and learning and health profession education. Outside of my professional life, I enjoy cooking, hiking and travelling.

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Michelle Nelson is a PhD candidate at the University of Manitoba (Faculty of Pharmacy). Her doctoral research which had been funded by the University of Manitoba Duff Roblin Fellowship, explores people’s lived experiences with health care and what influence these experiences may have on individuals’ participation in health care services. She teaches as a sessional instructor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management at the University of Manitoba, and is the co-lead of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority Team Training Initiative. She is also an active member of the Board of Directors of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Manitoba. Her research interests include person centredness, interprofessional teaming, the concepts of recreation and leisure and a variety of social factors that influence health program provision and participation.

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Annette Rose, Dalhousie University

Annette Elliott Rose (RN, MN) is currently a nurse consultant with a provincial program, which supports policy, education and research related to maternal-newborn care throughout Nova Scotia. She is also a lecturer and clinical instructor for Dalhousie University. Annette’s research interests focus on how intra- and inter-professional relationships impact women’s health outcomes and how integrated care delivery systems (and the relationships within those systems) support sustainable, accessible health care for women that is women-centered and based upon a broad understanding of health.

Her interest in primary health care stems from her varied clinical, policy, research and education experiences including clinical outpost nursing in northern Canada and informing standards and best practice in primary maternity care in Nova Scotia. Annette is currently working with her doctoral supervisor, Dr. Gail Tomblin Murphy, through the WHO Collaborating Centre on Health Workforce Planning and Research to build partnerships with a number of disciplines researching human resources for health nationally and internationally. Building on previous graduate work on nurse mentoring and using a needs-based (i.e.: what are the primary health care needs of women) health system and health human resources conceptual model, her doctoral research will focus on inter-professional learning and mentoring relationships within primary health care.

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Jaime Sapag, University of Toronto

Jaime Sapag is a Medical Doctor and Family Medicine Specialist with a mention in adults (Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile) and Master of Public Health (Harvard University, U.S.A.) with special interest and expertise in primary care, social epidemiology, health promotion, mental health/addiction and evaluation. He is a PhD candidate in the area of Health and Behavioural Sciences at the School of Public Health, University of Toronto. Jaime has been involved in different interdisciplinary research studies, integrating qualitative and quantitative methods.

Since April 2008, he is a special advisor/project co-ordinator for the Office of International Health, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH - Ontario, Canada), working to strengthen mental health and addiction capacity worldwide with a special emphasis on primary care in Latin American countries. He is one of the project coordinators of the current CAMH program entitled Mental Health and Addiction Capacity Building for Community Health Centres in Ontario. Jaime also has a Lecturer appointment at the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Toronto.

Before he arrived to Canada, he was working in Chile as an Assistant Professor at the Universidad Católica de Chile and as a consultant for the Division of Healthy Public Policies and Health Promotion, Public Health Subsecretary, Chilean Ministry of Health.

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Jacqueline Swan, University of Auckland

I am a General Practice Research Registrar currently completing a research pathway to fellowship for my general practice vocational training with the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners. My research currently is sponsored by a Primary Health Organisation and is focused around health services including patient feedback. I hope to pursue a more clinical focus at the TUTOR-PHC symposium. I work part time in clinical general practice and part time in research. I live in Auckland, New Zealand and this will be my first visit to Canada.

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