Dr. Gina Agarwal is a Professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact and an Associate Professor in the Department of Health and Aging. She is a practicing Family Physician, Primary Care Epidemiologist, the McMaster Family Medicine Levitt Scholar, and the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Vulnerable Individuals in Primary Care. She is a member of the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging and the McMaster Institute for Health Equity. Her research achievements have been recognized with the CIHR-IHSPR Article of the Year Award (2019), the prestigious Mid-Career Researcher Award from the North American Primary Care Research Group (2018), and an Award of Excellence from the College of Family Physicians of Canada (2016). As the Director of the Vulnerable Individuals in Primary Care (VIP) Research Lab, she focuses on improving primary health care access for vulnerable populations, ensuring people in need receive appropriate care at the right time and in the right place. As the Principal Investigator of the McMaster Community Paramedicine Research Team, she has driven health system change including the uptake of the innovative Community Paramedicine at Clinic (CP@clinic) program by 51% of Ontario Paramedic Services and its national (e.g. BCEHS) and international (e.g. UK, Australia) scale-up. She has worked extensively in social housing to improve the health of this vulnerable population and identify healthcare usage patterns. Her quantitative and qualitative research, including complex pragmatic studies, uses rigorous methods to produce novel insight into the unmet health needs of traditionally difficult-to-reach populations and determines cost-effective and targeted healthcare solutions nationally and globally. She regularly supervises undergraduate, master’s and doctoral students.

Special Interests: Unmet health needs of vulnerable populations (e.g. social housing residents), Quantitative and qualitative research methods (e.g. community-based RCTs including complex pragmatic studies and cost-effectiveness of community programming), Community Paramedicine, Social Housing, Diabetes, Cost-effective and targeted healthcare solutions, Community programming for the management of chronic health conditions, Low-cost primary care innovations in low and middle-income countries.

VIP Research Lab Website (https://vipresearchlab.ca/)

CP@clinic Website (https://cpatclinic.ca/)

Cheryl Allaby became part-time clinical faculty in the Department of Medicine, Geriatric Division, at McMaster University in the mid 2000’s. In 2010, she accepted a full-time academic position with the Department of Family Medicine and became an Associate Professor in 2015, stepping back to part-time in 2020. She is involved in teaching and clinical supervision of clinical clerks and residents and has tutored in the undergraduate MD program since 1999.

She completed Medical School at McMaster University in 1993. Prior to medicine, she was a physiotherapist employed primarily at St. Peter’s Hospital in the Geriatric Day Hospital, having developed a passion for working with older adults in her teen years.

After completing her Family Medicine Residency at McMaster University in 1995, she worked as a hospitalist in the Department of Geriatric Medicine at Hamilton Health Sciences for 24 years. She undertook a Family Medicine Hospitalist role at West Lincoln Memorial Hospital for 2 years following this. These days, she is at the Michael G. DeGroote Pain Clinic involved in chronic pain management and also with the Shelter Health Network of Hamilton. She completed a post-graduate certificate in chronic pain at the University of Alberta in 2022 and the IIWCC in wound care in 2018. Her interests are varied and include geriatric medicine, chronic pain, wound care, end of life care, addictions, homelessness and international health.

She was the Site Coordinator for the Juravinski Geriatric Teaching Unit from 2016-2020. Cheryl is committed to making learning fun and has developed interactive case-based tutorials for teaching geriatric topics, including falls, delirium and polypharmacy and learning sessions in wound care for Geriatric fellows. Cheryl also counts international health experiences in Jamaica and Uganda as enriching her life experience and maintains these connections.

Personally, she is married and together with her husband Chris, has 4 adult children and recently became a grandparent. Cheryl cultivates spirituality in her life, pursuing connectivity with God, humanity and nature. She enjoys outdoors activities including camping, biking and hiking in addition to reading, visual arts and playing board games.

Special Interests: Geriatric Medicine, Chronic Pain, Medical Education, Wound Care.

Ellen Amster is the Jason A. Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine at McMaster University and Associate Professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and Religious Studies. She received her B.A. from the University of Chicago and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research engages medicine in France, North America, and the Islamic world, focusing especially on global health, religion and nonwestern healing, women’s histories, and empire. From her award-winning book, Medicine and the Saints: Science, Islam, and the Colonial Encounter in Morocco, 1877-1956 (University of Texas) she developed an interdisciplinary global health field course for undergraduate students and is the Principal Investigator of the Morocco-Canadian Network in Maternal and Infant Health. Ongoing projects include the transnational legacies of race and colonialism in medicine, the history of public health, women and gender in medicine, midwifery, and medical education. Her research has been funded by IIE Fulbright-Hayes, the Chateaubriand Program of the French government, the Social Science Research Council, AIMS, SSHRC, and CIHR. Dr. Amster provides a regular speaker series open to the campus in the history of medicine. Her teaching includes the history of public health, research electives and professional competencies for MD students in the Michael DeGroote School of Medicine, and Islamic and gender studies in the Department of Religious Studies. For everyone to enjoy, she developed the AMS-funded Hannah History of Medicine and Medical Humanities Research Portal, with hundreds of libraries, archives, museums, digital collections, and grants, to browse for research and fun: http://medhumanities.mcmaster.ca.

Special Interests: Maternal and infant health, Islamic bioethics, race and colonialism in medicine, history of medicine, medical education, gender, public health.

Alison Baker is a family physician in Brantford, Ontario, and an Associate Clinical Professor at McMaster University. She teaches medical students and family medicine residents through the Grand Erie Six Nations Clinical Education Campus. She is the Assessment Director and Chair of the Central Competence Committee for McMaster’s Department of Family of Medicine Residency Program. She is a Fellow in the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) and holds a Clinician Educator Area of Focused Competence from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. She is the recipient of the DFM 2017 Excellence in Pre-Clerkship teaching award. She is Chair of the CFPC’s Faculty Development Interest Group and Chair of the CFPC’s National Assessment Community of Practice and sits on the College’s Certification Process and Assessment Committee. Her research activities include using simulation to teach essential conversations in palliative care, identifying opportunities for increasing access to palliative care, and examining motivations for pursuing enhanced skill credentials in family medicine. She is the lead physician for the Brant Family Health Organization, medical manager at Avenue Medical Centre, and a member of the strategic planning working group for the Brantford Brant Norfolk Ontario Health Team.

Amanda Bell is a graduate of McMaster’s medical school and has been practicing as a small-town family physician in Niagara since 2000 with clinical interest in adolescent medicine and women’s health. She is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Family Medicine. She has served as Regional Assistant Dean of the Niagara Regional Campus at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine since 2017. She has completed a Master’s in Health Science Education Program at McMaster where her area of research was student mistreatment. Amanda’s research interests include distributed medical education, professionalism, student mistreatment and experience and leadership development. Amanda has received the John C. Sibley Award for Excellence in Education from the Faculty of Health Sciences as well as a Certificate of Merit from the Canadian Association for Medical Education and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario Council Award. She is fueled by her family, chocolate, reading, Netflix and laughter.

Special Interests: student mistreatment, distributed medical education, professionalism, women’s health, adolescent medicine.

Morgan Black is a Family Physician and has been an Assistant Professor with the Department of Family Medicine since 2017. In addition to her work as a Family Physician at McMaster Family Practice, Dr. Black has a significant interest in the domains of Women’s Health and Low Risk Obstetrics. She currently works as a staff physician with the Maternity Centre of Hamilton, providing full prenatal care to vulnerable populations and performing full intrapartum care at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton. She also has a strong interest in medical education at both a postgraduate and undergraduate level.

Keyna Bracken is a Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University with a full time academic clinical practice at McMaster Family Practice. The former Undergraduate and Clerkship director for the department of Family Medicine, from 2016 until July 2022, Keyna is now the Chair Pre-Clerkship at the DeGroote School of Medicine where she actively works to champion the discipline of Family Medicine. Keyna is actively involved in teaching both at the undergraduate and postgraduate level with a special clinical interest in Women’s Health which has spanned comprehensive surgical obstetrical care across both high and low resource countries. Keyna has an academic fascination with the topic of optimal clinical learning environments and assessment in undergraduate medical education and is actively involved in several medical education research projects on that topic with both residents and undergraduate learners.

Apart from these scholarly interests and leadership roles, Dr. Bracken enjoys the promotion of Women’s Health care along with the concept of wellness and resilience both nationally and internationally and continues to work toward true reconciliation and the dismantling of the many systems of oppression and racism in both the learning and provision of health care both in Canada and internationally.

Special Interests: Optimal clinical learning environments, promotion of knowledge translation using learning psychology and technology assisted innovation, resilience and wellbeing over the course of medical education.

Dr. Chasen has been a faculty member of the Department of Family Medicine since 2016. He was born in Pretoria, South Africa, where completed his undergraduate training at the University of Pretoria in 1983, later obtaining a specialist degree in Internal Medicine, Medical Oncology, and Master of Philosophy (Palliative Medicine) at the University of Cape Town.

He is currently the Medical Director of Palliative Care at William Osler Health System in Brampton. He was previously the Medical Director of Palliative Care at The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre and the Palliative Rehabilitation Program at Élisabeth Bruyère Ottawa.

Dr. Chasen has over 110 peer-reviewed publications, abstracts, and book chapters. Presently, he is the principal investigator for the RELIEF App study, using digital technology to make palliative care accessible to people in their homes. Dr. Chasen is also involved in the development of European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) clinical practice guidelines for patients with anorexia-cachexia and the development of a Pan-Canadian guideline in survivorship. He has led 2 teams to achieve the international ESMO accreditation for Integrated Oncology/Palliative Centres.

Dr. Chasen has received multiple awards, including the Elizabeth J Latimer Prize in Palliative Care from McMaster University, Kay Blair Community Service Award from William Osler Health System, and Eduardo Bruera Award in Palliative Medicine from the CSPCP.

Outside of academia, Dr. Chasen enjoys spending time with his beautiful wife Pamela, two daughters, and two grandchildren. His enjoyment of arts and theatre is one of many of his passions.

Special Interests: Palliative care, survivorship, cancer cachexia, digital health technology.

Dr. Amie Davis is a family physician in the Department of Family Medicine. For the first half of her career, she practiced community-based comprehensive family medicine which included adult inpatient, obstetrical, palliative and outpatient care. She was also the inaugural site director for the Halton Postgraduate Family Medicine residency site. Her work in medical education has allowed her to contribute in the roles of Site Director at many of the McMaster sites including Halton, Niagara and Hamilton. She is currently the Curriculum Director in the postgraduate Family Medicine program with a special interest in entrustment, competency-based learning and curriculum design. She became a full-time faculty member in 2019, and her family practice is located at Stonechurch Family Health centre where her special interests include delivering and teaching gender-affirming primary care, obstetrical care and women’s health. She is the current medical director of the Maternity Centre of Hamilton, where she participates in the collaborative model of expert family medicine obstetrical providers who provide antepartum, intrapartum and postpartum care to pregnant patients with a special expertise in providing care for pregnant people who may be socially at risk.

Special Interests: Family Medicine Obstetrical Care, Gender Affirming Primary Care, Medical Education.

Dr. Nancy Fowler is the Executive Director, Academic Family Medicine at the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC). This CFPC division oversees the development and implementation of the standards of training and certification for family physicians in Canada, as well as working to advance family medicine education and research with universities and other partner organizations. She is a family physician and Associate Professor with 30 years of clinical and academic experience based in Hamilton Ontario affiliated with the McMaster University Department of Family Medicine. She served as the family medicine postgraduate program director for ten years, with a practice based at McMaster Family Practice and before that at the North Hamilton Community Health Centre where she made her start as a full time faculty member. She has a long history of leadership in the medical education and refugee health and believes strongly in family medicine as a force for good in the world.

Dr. Erin Gallagher is a graduate of McMaster University’s Family Medicine residency program (2015), PGY3 Enhanced Skills Training in Palliative Care program (2016) and Master of Public Health program (2018). In 2017 she completed her Clinical Scholar training through McMaster Family Practice, followed by starting her own general practice in 2017 at Stonechurch Family Health Centre where she trained as a resident.

Through her undergraduate training, Dr. Gallagher discovered her love for medical education and leadership development of medical trainees, the latter being an area of research interest and publication. She is a clinical supervisor and lecturer at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the areas of general Family Medicine and Palliative Care. She sits on local, provincial and national committees for Palliative Care education for Family Medicine as well as Medicine and its Subspecialties. Her academic interests include public health approaches to palliative care, including community engagement and development, as well as building capacity for palliative care in primary care.

Clinically, Dr. Gallagher divides her time between providing comprehensive family medicine care to her patients and working as a palliative care consultant for McMaster’s Hamilton teaching sites and Hamilton Health Sciences hospitals. She is the Medical Director at Emmanuel House hospice in Hamilton and the Ontario Health West Physician Clinical Co-Lead for Palliative Care.

Dr. Lawrence Grierson leads research concerned with understanding the relationship between health professions education policies and practices and the quality of healthcare delivered to patients and communities. This work pays specific attention to education antecedents for effective comprehensive family medicine practice, training approaches that promote the acquisition of clinical technical skills, and the ethical inter-institutional collation of training metrics for medical education research.

Dr. Grierson is a member of the CFPC Section of Researchers. He is Professor with the Department of Family Medicine (DFM); Assistant Dean of the Health Sciences Education Graduate Program (HSED); and Scientist with the McMaster Education Research, Innovation, & Theory (MERIT) research centre.

Special Interests: Medical and health professions education, admissions and assessment, education research data management, precision technical skills.

Dale Guenter has experience in community-oriented primary care among populations living on the margins of society and the health system, including people in the inner city, remote northern communities, the Philippines, and people experiencing incarceration. He has been focused clinically on managing illness from blood-born pathogens, chronic pain, addiction and mental health issues. He has pursued teaching, research and program development relevant to all of these areas. The emphasis in all of his work is to learn new ways to be profoundly relationship-centred, equity-seeking, and system-improving. His clinical role is with Shelter Health Network in Hamilton. He works to humanize the experience family medicine faculty members in his role as the Faculty Experience Director.

Dr. Shayna Henry joined the department as a full-time faculty member in November 2023. Shayna provides clinical services at McMaster Family Practice as well as the Shelter Health Network and The Hamilton Clinic, practicing addictions medicine. She has been a member of MFP since 2021. During that time, Shayna has demonstrated her skills as a knowledgeable clinician and passionate educator.

Shayna received her BSc in Biology in 2012 and her MSc in Global Health/Global Health Management and Policy in 2014, both from McMaster University. She completed her MB BCH BAO with honours from University College Cork in Ireland in 2019. She then completed her family medicine residency training with the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University in 2021.

Karenna’onwe – Dr. Karen Hill is a Mohawk physician from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. She is the mother of two sons and step mother to five daughters. Hill completed medical school in 2003 and Family Medicine Residency in 2005 – both from McMaster University. Her vision is to see Traditional Indigenous Knowledge return to the centre of life and health care for Indigenous people across Canada. This vision led her to co-create a collaborative practice with Traditional Medicine Practitioners at Six Nations called Juddah’s Place. In 2015 Hill became the first recipient of the Thomas Dignan award for Indigenous Health conferred by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. In the same year she also received The College of Family Physicians Excellence Award for leading the way in Indigenous collaborative care in primary practice. Also, in 2016 she was honored by McMaster University with a Community Impact Award. Recently Hill partnered with Paulette Moore – A Mohawk filmmaker – to create “The Aunties Dandelion” media/research centre and healing space, focused on supporting Indigenous embodiment and expanding the human family. Karen continues to practice consultative holistic medicine at Six Nations and provides locum coverage and hospitalist care in Moose Factory. She has completed 4 years apprenticeship in Traditional Indigenous Medicine and continues learning Mohawk language. She continues both as life long commitments.

Michelle Howard is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine. Her research focuses on understanding the role of primary care for people with serious and life-limiting illness, by examining the influences of practice models, patterns and policies using health administrative and clinical data. She has also studied how patients and health care professionals in primary care talk about serious illness and preparing for future decision-making and has evaluated several tools for advance care planning in family practice.

Michelle has an MSc in Epidemiology from the University of Toronto and a PhD in Health Research Methodology from McMaster University. She primarily uses quantitative approaches including observational studies with population-based data (e.g. www.ices.on.ca www.cpcssn.ca), survey research and development of measures.

Michelle is an instructor for the Program Evaluation course in the McMaster Health Science Education (HSED) program and supervises graduate students with relevant research interests in McMaster’s Health Research Methodology Program.

Gabrielle Inglis joined the Department of Family Medicine as an Assistant Professor in 2019. In addition to her clinical practice at McMaster Family Practice, she works as a Consultant Physician with the Inpatient Addiction Medicine Service at Hamilton Health Sciences and St. Joseph’s Hospital. Prior to joining the department, she completed a Masters in Medical Education at Harvard University, and is actively involved in post-graduate and undergraduate medical education.

Special Interests: Care for People who use Drugs, Primary care generalism, Medical Education, Narrative Medicine

Sarah Kinzie is an associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University. She is currently the Postgraduate Program Director for Family Medicine, a position she has held since 2015.

Dr. Kinzie joined the Department of Family Medicine in January 2000 after completing her undergraduate and postgraduate medical training here at McMaster University. She practices at Stonechurch Family Health Centre where she provides comprehensive care for a diverse patient population, in an interprofessional team-based model of care. Dr. Kinzie provided full-care obstetrics and neonatal care during her first 12 years in practice, and remains passionate about women’s health. Other areas of clinical interest include palliative care as well as home-based care for her frail elderly patients.

Dr. Kinzie’s primary academic focus lies in postgraduate medical education. As the former Hamilton Site Director (2009-2015), she led a number of curriculum innovations, including development of a unique, family medicine-led Maternal Child rotation for Hamilton residents, focused on interprofessional teaching of a comprehensive family medicine skill set in a family-centred model of care. Dr. Kinzie was also responsible for the creation of “Block 7”, an innovative, common, integrated Family Medicine-Academic block for all family medicine residents.

From 2005-2015, Dr. Kinzie served as National Director of the Residency Practice-Based Learning Program, (a program administered by the McMaster-affiliated, non-profit Foundation for Medical Practice Education). That involvement supported numerous research and faculty development initiatives that explore how physicians learn and change, with a focus on supporting the transition from residency to practice.

In her current role as Postgraduate Program Director, Dr. Kinzie oversees the training of over 200 family medicine residents distributed across 12 sites. In addition to curriculum development, her primary academic interests include relationship-centred care and teaching, effective learning and remediation strategies, and professional identity development.

Fiona Kouyoumdjian is a Family Physician, Public Health and Preventive Medicine Physician, and Epidemiologist. She received her BA with Honors from Brown University, her MD from Dalhousie University, her MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health. She completed residency training at the University of Toronto and a CIHR Fellowship at St. Michael’s Hospital.

Fiona leads a program of research focused on the health status and health care of people who experience imprisonment. Her specific research foci are decreasing imprisonment, improving health care and health promotion for people in prison, and supporting successful re-integration to the community for people on release from prison.

Fiona is also an Adjunct Scientist at ICES and an Associate Member in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact at McMaster.

Dr. Linda Lee is a Care of the Elderly family physician, Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University, Director of the Centre for Family Medicine and KW Regional Memory Clinics, and Schlegel Chair in Primary Care for Elders. She has developed the MINT Memory Clinic model and Training Program which has assisted 120 other primary care settings in Ontario, BC, Alberta, and Saskatchewan to establish new MINT Memory Clinics. Dr. Lee’s research interests focus on improving health care for older adults living with dementia and other complex chronic conditions. She enjoys time with family, growing tomatoes, and raising parrots.

Special Interests: community-based dementia care, frailty in primary care.

Michael Lee-Poy is a family physician at the KW & Area Family Medicine teaching site. His passions are in medical education, curriculum and QI. He has an interested in advocacy and LGBT health, and engages in gender affirming training for learners.

Special Interests: Teaching & Education, Curriculum, QI, Indigneous Heath, LGBT Health.

Robin Lennox has been a Family Physician and Assistant Professor with the Department of Family Medicine since 2017. She has a clinical focus in the care of people who use drugs, which includes working with the Rapid Access Addiction Medicine Clinic and the Program for Substance Use in Pregnancy at the Maternity Centre of Hamilton. She is co-Head of Service for the Inpatient Addiction Medicine Service at Hamilton Health Sciences and St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton. In addition, Dr. Lennox works with the Shelter Health Network providing primary care for people deprived of housing. She has a diverse research portfolio aimed at improving models of care delivery and the health outcomes of people who use drugs with infectious complications, and improving the experiences of people who use drugs when interacting with the health system.

Special Interests: Care of People Who Use Drugs, Addiction Medicine, HIV primary care, gender diverse care, care of people deprived of housing.

Derelie (Dee) Mangin is a professor in the Department of Family Medicine, where she has held the distinguished David Braley Nancy Gordon Chair since 2013. Her academic interests include the role and value of generalist primary care; innovative models of primary care delivery; rational prescribing; effective incorporation of evidence into patient centered practice; and the influences of science, policy and commerce on the nature of care. An area of current focus is multimorbidity and polypharmacy among older adults as a lens for promoting care that maps onto patient priorities and where the burden or care does not exceed the patient’s capacity to benefit. She has wide clinical research experience in primary care, including observational and interventional quantitative research methods and community randomized control trials (RCTs) of innovative models of care. She is currently director of the McMaster University Sentinel and Information Collaboration (MUSIC) practice based research network. Dee has experience leading RCTs of clinical interventions in areas such as antidepressant use, community acquired pneumonia, antibiotics in urinary tract infections, and deprescription trials. She has received award for leadership in Family Medicine and in Family Medicine research that include the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners Distinguished Service Award and the Canadian College of Family Physicians Donald I Rice Award.

Special Interests: The role and value of generalist primary care in the health system; innovative models of primary care delivery; rational prescribing; effective incorporation of evidence into patient centered practice; and the influences of science, policy and commerce on the nature of care.

Dr. Denise Marshall (she/her) is a McMaster Family Medicine-based Palliative Care Physician. After completing both undergraduate, graduate and palliative care training at McMaster, Dr. Marshall joined the faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster in 1990, becoming full Professor in 2016. She has held a number of academic leadership roles including Undergraduate Director for Family Medicine, and Assistant Dean, Faculty Development for the Faculty of Health Sciences. In 2003, Dr. Marshall helped launch the Division of Palliative Care, and was its founding Director. She examined Palliative Care as a public health issue during her sabbatical in 2013 and then focused much of her academic work on Public Health Palliative Care. She has provided leadership regionally, provincially and nationally on health systems issues and planning related to palliative and end of life care. She was the inaugural  medical director and founder of the Niagara West Palliative Care Team and McNally House Hospice located in Grimsby where she lived and worked for 40 years. Her interests include  hiking, German Shepherding , singing and  Grammie time with her grandkids.  She now divides her year between a cottage  on Lake Huron, and Halifax.

Dr. Jonel Miklea is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University. He received his training on three different continents. Jonel graduated from the Faculty of Medicine Carol Davila in Bucharest, Romania and completed his Family Medicine residency at McMaster University. He joined McMaster Family Practice as a practicing family physician, and the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University in 2001. He completed his Masters in Medical Education at Flinders University in Australia. During his time within the department, Jonel has been a committed mentor to medical students, family medicine residents, and international medical graduates. From 2004 until 2011, he was the Program Director of the Family Medicine Undergraduate Program and has been a leader in the development of an integrated clerkship program at McMaster University. In 2003, Jonel was awarded the Gerry Cohen Teaching Award for his excellence as a clinical teacher and his commitment to residency education. In 2008, he was co-recipient of the College of Family Physicians of Canada Outstanding Family Medicine Research Article. Over the years he held different roles in the department from Education Site Coordinator to Faculty Development Local Lead. Jonel pioneered the Adolescent Health Clinic at the Youth and Wellness Center for family medicine residents to sample social accountability during their training. Jonel is a Master Certified Physician Development Coach. His coaching training allows him to facilitate national workshops on coaching peers and learners. He leads the coaching faculty development program for the health sciences and has been doing academic coaching for faculty across the disciplines. Jonel sits on the executive at the Clinical Faculty Association at Hamilton Health Sciences and also actively practices inpatient hospitalist medicine.

Family physician with the Centre for Family Medicine (CFFM) Kitchener-Waterloo. Director of the CFFM Mobility Clinic, an interprofessional primary care clinic with a focus to improve primary care for individuals with spinal cord injury and other physical disabilities. The clinic is dedicated to clinical research in primary care, working closely with the Praxis Spinal Cord Injury Institute. Associate Clinical Professor with the McMaster University Department of Family Medicine and Clinical Specialist for Mobility and Falls with the University of Waterloo-Schlegel Research Institute for Aging (UW-RIA).

Special Interests: Director Mobility Clinic. Interest in primary care research involving spinal cord injury and physical disabilities.

Dr. Mountjoy is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University Medical School and Regional Assistant Dean of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University. She is also a clinician scientist – working for several International Sports organizations in the field of sports medicine including the International Olympic Committee (Games Group), the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations, FIFA, International Golf Federation, World Rugby, and for the World Anti-Doping Agency. She is a retired elite synchronized swimmer. One of her areas of expertise is in the field of harassment + abuse in sport, athlete mental health and female athlete health She is an active advocate of athlete health and well-being at the national and international levels.

Special Interests: Sport and exercise medicine, medical education.

Dr. Nagji has been a member of the Department since 2015.  Since his time in the Department, he has demonstrated a strong commitment towards medical education.  He has contributed to various academic programs that focus on clinical scholarship, and educational leadership and innovation. He has positioned himself to be a well-respected clinician within the local healthcare systems who is highly regarded by his peers.  He has also advanced the mission of emergency medicine (EM) through his to commitment to patient-centered care and has positioned himself as a mentor and faculty advisor to learners. Nagji practices out of Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital (JBH) in Burlington and St Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (SJHH). He has been the Director of the EM Clinical Teaching Unit at JBH and SJHH, where he supported faculty development initiatives. He is also the Director of Simulation Learning at JBH and the Simulation Lead for the Mac-Care Burlington CEC where he facilitates regular in-situ simulation programs for staff and learners.

Nagji has also made significant contributions to the Medical School through his involvement as Director of the Emergency Medicine Clerkship, including the renovation of curriculum and integrating innovative virtual teaching modalities during the pandemic. He is also well-known for his expertise in the field of curriculum design and healthcare simulation training. This expertise has garnered him certification from the Royal College Clinician-Educator Diploma Program and the Harvard Simulation Essentials Program.

Nagji is the recipient of several teaching awards, including the Undergraduate Community Teacher of the Year Award in Emergency Medicine and the Joseph Brant Hospital Medical Staff Association Excellence in Teaching Award.

Mat practices and teaches comprehensive rural/ small town family medicine. He has privileges at West Lincoln Memorial Hospital, where he sees inpatients, cares for newborns, and has shifts in the ER. His practice is with the Smithville Family Health Team. He loves guitar jam sing-alongs, and skiing and skating on the creek behind his house.

Dr. Oliver is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University.

He joined the Department in 2004 and took on a full-time faculty position in 2007.

Dr. Oliver’s passion for elder care lead him to take on the position as Care of the Elderly Curriculum Coordinator from 2006 – 2015. This role allowed him to develop many innovative programs for the Department, including a Long Term Care clinical rotation for residents and a successful annual CME event entitled “Care of the Elderly: Perspectives for Primary Care”. His clinical commitment to this patient population continues with weekly nursing home rounds and house-calls to frail elderly patients.

He is also co-PI on Health Tapestry, a multi-year, multi-site primary care based intervention aimed at promoting optimal aging in community dwelling older adults. Dr. Oliver’s interest in improving access for patients in primary care resulted in study and co-development of an Advanced Access booking model in the McMaster Family Health Team. This model allows patients better access to their primary care team by having the majority of booking spots available for same day appointments.

Dr. Oliver is the Principle Investigator on a research project designed to better understand how and why patients make the choices they do, when calling in to book an appointment with their family doctor. On the academic front, Dr. Oliver is assisting the Department with several educational leadership roles including Co-Education Coordinator at McMaster Family Practice (2011-16), Hamilton Site Director and CBRT Education Coordinator (2012-2013) and Behavioural Sciences Co-Coordinator (2013-).

Dr. Oliver has held several academic leadership roles in the last few years, including Education Coordinator at MFP (2011-16), MHBS Curriculum Coordinator (2013-2019) and is currently the Medical Director at McMaster Family Practice (2016-present)”

Dr. Amanda Ramdyal is Family Physician and joined the Department of Family Medicine in 2016 as a locum, and then became an Assistant Professor in 2017. She has a strong clinical interest in women’s health and sexual health. Dr. Ramdyal is a staff physician at Stonechurch Family Health Centre, as well as with Hamilton Public Health Sexual Health Clinic. She has a special research interest in prevention, screening and management of sexually transmitted infections.

Dr. Redwood-Campbell is a full-time faculty member and Full Professor in the Department of Family Medicine since 1996. She is the co-director, Global Health for Postgraduate Medical Education McMaster University. She has a keen interest and expertise in Global Health. She completed her MD and residency at McMaster and her Diploma in Hygiene and Public Health in London UK at the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. She additionally completed her Master’s in Public Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She has been involved in global health partnerships in primary care and global family medicine. She is the current Chair, Besrour Global Family Medicine Advisory Council.  She has decades of experience international disaster humanitarian work mostly with the Canadian and International Red Cross. She has worked in many countries like Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Haiti, Mozambique, Nepal and more. She is the recipient of the OMA Presidential Award, which recognizes long-standing humanitarian service to the greater community. Her more recent research focused on lessons learned by healthcare teams doing international humanitarian work and how this is directly applicable to the Canadian context. In 2023, she is a member of the Ontario Public Health Emergencies Science Advisory Council. She enjoys teaching medical residents and students in a broad family medicine context. Dr. Redwood-Campbell has a clinical practice at McMaster University and enjoys the Canadian outdoors. Further information can be found at https://mcmasterfamilypractice.ca/bios/lynda-redwood-campbell/

Special Interests: Global Health, humanitarian response, complex humanitarian emergencies, immigrant and refugee health, primary health care, global family medicine, equity in healthcare, medical education, teaching in medicine, quality assurance.

Dr. Cathy Risdon is Professor and Chair of the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster aiming to help reinvigorate a sustainable, inclusive learning and practice environment for current and future family medicine learners and providers. For Risdon, breaking down barriers and honouring different viewpoints is key to building a successful department capable of training top-quality family doctors and attracting skilled staff and faculty.

She was the first holder of the David Braley-Nancy Gordon Endowed Chair in Family Medicine, mandated to develop innovations in education, clinical service and research relating to the doctor-patient and interdisciplinary team relationships. She co-created the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine’s Professional Competency Curriculum, a two-year course to teach professionalism, communication skills, advocacy, ethics and reflective practice. Following the ten-year term of her Endowed Chair, she became Associate Chair, Academic within the Department of Family Medicine, as well as the co-lead for the McMaster Family Health Team.

Dr. Risdon has completed a Doctorate of Management in Organizational Change at the University of Hertfordshire where her research explored themes of excellence and improvisation within curriculum design and implementation. She has conducted training and consultations across North America for primary care and community-based agencies wishing to improve their capacity for effective team and interprofessional collaborations. Her expertise in facilitation was used to design and deliver on the successful Hamilton Health Team submission. She is an expert in health system integration and primary care and is one of three Canadians who has been inducted as a Fellow of the Academy of Communications in Healthcare in recognition of her contributions to curricular design and facilitation.

A McMaster graduate (class of ’92), Dr. Risdon’s clinical practice has included a varied inner-city population with a focus on vulnerable populations.

After more than 30 years in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster, Dr. Risdon is still amazed at her good fortune in working with such terrific people. “We have extraordinary people engaged in our mission of service, teaching, and discovery. It’s my privilege to do all that I can to help them thrive.”

Comprehensive Family Physician, with an interest in medical education and training of future Family Physicians.

Dr. Inge Schabort is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and the Postgraduate International Medical Graduate (IMG) Director at the Department of Family Medicine, McMaster University. She practices as a full-time academic family physician at Stonechurch Family Health Centre and she tutors Evidence-Based Medicine, Quality Improvement and Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences in the residency program She just completed her term as Academic Half Day Coordinator in the Department.

Dr Schabort recently completed a Master of Health Professions Education (MHPE) at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands (2020) and an MSc in Evidence Based Health Care from Oxford University in the UK (2022).

After medical school she worked as a physician in Sub-Saharan Africa for 10 years and completed postgraduate training in obstetrics and gynecology, internal medicine, epidemiology, immunology, endocrinology, biochemistry and pathology before she was recruited to Canada. In Canada it took several years for her to compete for an IMG position in Ontario and then repeat her clerkship as well as complete a family medicine residency in the Ontario IMG program.

Dr. Schabort is an author of the national Future of Medical Education in Canada (FMEC) IMG Environmental Scan document, and she also was a physician-stakeholder consultant for the Pan-Canadian Framework for the Assessment and recognition of foreign qualifications for the entry to Residency pathway. She sat on the Thomson IMG Working Group of the Council of Ontario Universities and is currently representing the CFPC on the national N4 Working Group to leverage IMGs to close healthcare labour market gaps. She completed a comprehensive review of the medical student and resident selection and IMG literature and has published research on IMG selection predictors for success. Her MHPE thesis studied IMG selection in Canada and her Oxford dissertation studied IMGs internationally. She recently completed a systematic review of prognostic studies on predictors for success in IMGs in postgraduate training and practice internationally as part of her Oxford dissertation. She currently sits on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Residency Matching Service as an expert in IMG matters.

Dr. Schabort was on the Ontario Steering Committee for the development of the Curriculum for the Ontario International Medical Graduate Pre-Residency program and currently is on the Curricular Advisory Committee for the Pre-residency IMG program for all RCPSC and CFPC IMGs entering residency training in Ontario. She sat on the provincial steering committee for the development of the curriculum and selection process for Practice Ready Assessment. She sat on the Steering Committee for the Ontario Inter-professional Spinal Assessment Education Clinics (ISAEC) and was the Hamilton Primary Care Lead for the implementation of the ISAEC pilot.

She has authored papers on several topics in medical education and primary care research, and an invited book chapter on International Medical Graduates. She has received several awards including the 2012 Award of Excellence from the College of Family Physicians of Canada and the Glenn Sawyer Service Award from the Ontario Medical Association in 2015 as well as the Professional Association of Residents of Ontario (PARO) Excellence in Clinical Teaching Award in 2021

Her clinical and academic interests include medical education, selection, assessment, remediation, leadership, mentorship, IMG education and advocacy, disease screening, prevention and health promotion global health, inter-professional care and education, vulnerable population health, women’s health, chronic disease management, evidence-based medicine and primary care research.

Dr. Keya Shah is a Family and Care of the Elderly physician who joined the Department of Family Medicine in 2020 as a locum physician. She has been engaged in the postgraduate education program and became the Domain Lead for Care of the Elderly in 2021. She is now an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department and a staff physician working at Stonechurch Family Health Centre as part of the McMaster Family Health Team. Dr. Shah is a proud graduate of McMaster University’s family medicine residency program and now acts as a clinical preceptor to current residents. She utilizes her unique perspective to offer mentorship and support clinical experiences in Care of the Elderly at each of the teaching sites. Her clinical interests include polypharmacy, cognitive impairment and providing home visits to frail older adults and palliative patients. As one of the lead physicians for the Memory Clinic at Stonechurch Family Health Centre, Dr. Shah enjoys working through complex presentations alongside an interdisciplinary team. Outside of work, Dr. Shah enjoys outdoor activities such as camping and kayaking, as well as enjoying good food and board games with her family and friends.

Special Interests: cognitive impairment, home visits, polypharmacy, medical education, palliative care.

Henry Siu completed his undergraduate medical training at the University of Toronto in 2008, and his residency training at McMaster University in 2010. He joined the department full time in 2013 and was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in 2020.

His clinical interests include care of the elderly, especially those living in long-term care. He currently practices at Stonechurch Family Health Centre, and as an attending physician at a local long-term care home.

His current research endeavours involve research in long-term care including auditing advance care planning rates and assessing clinicians barriers to long-term care, implementing a new periodic health examination form, and implementing a tool to support informed consent and alignment of practices in LTC to the Ontario Health Care Consent Act. He has recently received funding from the Canadian Frailty Network and Health Canada to pursue his research interests and have published articles in various journals about his work in long-term care.

Special Interests: Care of the Elderly, Long-term care

Claudia Steffler is an Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University. She joined the Department in 2001 as a primary care nurse practitioner and was instrumental in the program design and development of the Maternity Centre of Hamilton. Claudia helped to build the multidisciplinary team at the Maternity Centre and establish long term partnerships with community stakeholders to support marginalized families in Hamilton.

Her clinical interests include family medicine obstetrics, perinatal substance use and understanding the non-medical factors that influence health. Claudia’s passion for advocacy and addressing health inequities has led to many innovative programs aimed at addressing the unfair and avoidable differences in healthcare access for vulnerable populations.

Claudia has been the clinic director of the Maternity Centre of Hamilton since 2010, splitting her time between administration, clinical practice, and medical education.

Dr. Tong is an emergency medicine and prison health physician based in Kitchener-Waterloo. She leads faculty development at the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University. She is the Program Director of the accredited Royal College Clinician Educator Diploma Area of Focused Competence Program at McMaster University. As a MERIT scholar, she collaborates with fellow MERIT researchers and Faculty of Health Sciences academic leaders in designing and evaluating faculty development activities for Equity, Diversity, Inclusivity and Indigenous Reconciliation objectives using simulation-based education. She teaches HSED706, Management and Leadership in Health Professions Education for the Master’s Program in Health Sciences Education with the School of Graduate Studies, McMaster University. She believes that family physicians are perfectly positioned to lead in transforming healthcare delivery and education at this time of rapid change.

Special Interests: faculty development, educational leadership, educational scholarship, EDI-IR, emergency medicine, prison health.

Dr. Jobin Varughese is an Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Family Medicine. He is a comprehensive Family Physician working at Queen Square Family Health Team in Brampton, Ontario. He serves as the Chair-Elect for the Section of Teachers with the College of Family Physicians of Canada and President-Elect for the Ontario College of Family Physicians.

Care of the elderly is a passion and as a former Long-Term Care (LTC) Physician and Rehabilitation Hospitalist, he served this population for a decade. During this time, he worked in education and leading the care of the residents in LTC, by serving on the boards of the Ontario Long-Term Care Physicians (OLTCP) and Ontario Long-Term Care Clinicians (OLTCC). He was a key contributor/educator and facilitator with respect to the development and administration of the OLTCC’s Medical Director Curriculum Course. This course is now mandatory for every medical director to complete within two years of starting their role. His group’s research was published in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association. He serves as a LEAP Coach in various Pallium’s LEAP courses (Core, LTC and Online). He continues to facilitate the Improving & Driving Excellence Across Sectors (IDEAS), wa course on Quality Improvement.

He has been awarded the Intrepid Leader Award by the Brampton Board of Trade and Preceptor of the Year at the Brampton site of the residency program.

He enjoys spending time with his wife, two daughters and dog.

Special Interests: Care of the Elderly, Family Medicine, Generalism, Health Administration, Healthcare Leadership.

Dr. Heather Waters is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University and has been with the Department since 2000.

Dr. Waters is the Postgraduate Program Director, responsible for leading McMaster’s Family Medicine Residency Training Program across its distributed network of sites. She previously provided educational leadership in Family Medicine in the roles of Hamilton Site Director and Education Coordinator (Stonechurch Family Health Centre).

Dr. Waters works closely with program and CFPC leads in curriculum renewal through the Outcomes of Training Project (OTP). As a member of the CFPC’s Postgraduate Education Committee (PGEC), she contributes to the development of resources to support Family Medicine programs and program directors.

Dr. Waters was McMaster’s former PGME Director of Academic Performance Support and Chair of the Education Advisory Board.  In these roles she provided consultation and support to residency programs, program directors, and residents in situation of learner academic difficulty and remediation. She was a founding member of the National Collaboration of Remediation Leads in 2021.

As a member of the Section of Medicine Professionalism Committee and the Professionalism in Practice Working Group at McMaster, Dr. Waters contributes to the development of tools and processes to support professionalism development for learners and faculty.  As a member of the CanMeds2025 Expert Working Group on the Professional role, she is contributing to updated postgraduate competency expectations related to professionalism and professional identity formation.

Dr. Waters has a keen interest in medical education and scholarship, particularly related to postgraduate training, generalism and family medicine, professionalism and professional identity formation, humanism and the humanities in medicine, physician and resident wellness, physician leadership, and academic performance support/remediation. She is a member of McMaster’s Education Research, Innovation and Theory (MERIT) Program.

Dr. Waters has had longstanding involvement with the Foundation for Medical Practice Education and the Practice-based Small Group Learning Program (PBSG) as a board member, co-editor, author, peer and resident group facilitator.

As an expert generalist and member of the McMaster Family Health Team, Dr. Waters is actively involved in inter-professional team-based practice and education at Stonechurch Family Health Centre. She provided low risk obstetrical care through the Maternity Centre of Hamilton for twenty years, specializing in care to systemically marginalized women and their families.

Dr. Justin Weresch is a Family Physician and joined the Department of Family Medicine as a Locum in 2016 and as an Assistant Professor in 2017. He is a Family Physician at McMaster Family Practice. His clinical interests include promoting Generalism within Family Medicine, Learner Wellness, and Musculoskeletal Medicine. He has a strong interest in Postgraduate Medical Education (Resident Education) and has been involved in the Residency Program as a primary clinical preceptor, Lecturer, Inquiry Tutor, as well as a Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences (MHBS) tutor and Curriculum Co-ordinator. His scholarly contributions stem from his interest in evidence-based and clinically relevant topics.