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Membership of the Provincial Infectious Diseases Advisory Committees (PIDAC) brings together a high level of expertise from relevant fields across Ontario's health sector, including respected experts in infectious disease, infection prevention and control, epidemiology, public health, occupational health and safety, laboratory and veterinary medicine. PHO has established the following five committees to support PIDAC functions within the organization:
The Coordinating Committee will provide guidance and coordination to PIDAC activities within PHO and across the advisory committees. The four advisory committees will provide expert advice, develop evidence-based knowledge products (best practice documents) and provide broad-based field advice to PHO in support of its mandate to provide scientific and technical advice to those working to protect and promote the health of Ontarians.
Irene Armstrong is a community medicine specialist who has been working in Communicable Disease Control at Toronto Public Health since 2005. Currently, she is the associate medical officer of health for the Communicable Disease Liaison Unit and an adjunct professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Armstrong is also an OMA representative on the OHA Communicable Disease Surveillance Protocols Committee.
Nina Arron is director, Public Health Protection and Prevention Branch in the Public Health Division at the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. Prior to joining the Public Health Division in June 2009, she served as acting executive director at the Centre for Communicable Diseases and Infection Control in the Infectious Disease and Emergency Preparedness Branch at the Public Health Agency of Canada, serving as the national focal point for federal government action on HIV and AIDS. Arron has a bachelor of science in nursing (public health) and graduate preparation in health administration. She has extensive health program and policy experience at the federal level in the areas of aging and seniors, health system renewal, primary care and environmental health. She has rounded out her experience in the community, as director of a community health centre and has held progressive clinical and management positions within the acute care delivery system. Arron has taught and coordinated curriculum development at Algonquin College and the Ottawa University and is currently serving as the provincial health co-chair on the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Food Safety Committee.
Donna Baker is corporate manager of infection prevention and control at ACO Health Service.
Sandra Callery has worked in the field of infection prevention and control for many years. Her other work experiences include clinical research and occupational health and safety. She has worked in a variety of health care settings, including public health, small community hospitals and large tertiary care centres. Callery is a registered nurse and holds a master of health sciences (health care practice) where her research focused on HIV infection, counselling and testing. She has participated in research and publications regarding disease transmission and management of patients with antibiotic resistant organisms. Callery is a past national president of the Community and Hospital Infection Control Association of Canada (CHICA Canada) and has participated in national committees such as the National Advisory Committee on Immunization and the National Pandemic Influenza Planning Committee. She continues to participate in international infection control initiatives through CHICA Canada. Callery is a faculty member for the Centennial College Course for Infection Prevention and Control and is an assistant clinical professor at McMaster University for the Faculty of Health Sciences. Currently she is the director of Infection Prevention and Control at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.
Mary Lou Card is the manager of Infection Prevention and Control at London Health Sciences and St. Joseph's Health Care Centre. She has been an infection control practitioner for over 20 years, is a registered nurse and is certified in Infection Control (CIC).
Mary Anne Carson is a registered nurse with a bachelor of science in nursing from McMaster University. She has spent more than 25 years of nursing career in public health with the majority of the time spent in the immunization and communicable disease control area. Carson is currently the manager of Communicable Disease Control Services for Halton Region Health Department, a position she has held for the past 13 years.
Natasha Crowcroft has a bachelor of medicine, bachelor of surgery and master of science from the University of London, post graduate specialist qualifications in internal medicine and public health (Membership of the Royal College of Physicians [MRCP] and Fellow of the Faulty of Public Health [FFPH]), and a medical doctorate from the University of Cambridge. Crowcroft has worked internationally in several European programs and as adviser to the World Health Organization (WHO) on methods of estimating global burden of pertussis and neonatal tetanus. She was the first person selected to represent the United Kingdom (UK) in the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET) and is the founding president of the EPIET Alumni Network (EAN), which links public health epidemiologists across Europe. While working in Belgium from 1995 to 1997, Crowcroft undertook one of the first cross border projects completed between Belgium and France, a study of hantavirus infections. After this, she worked for a decade in the Immunisation Department of the Health Protection Agency’s Centre for Infections as a national expert in vaccines, leading on surveillance of a number of diseases including diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis as well as vaccination coverage. She has also led incident responses to Lassa fever, pioneered immunization training initiatives and has research interests in encephalitis and vaccine program evaluation. She is a member of the Canadian National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI).
Eileen de Villa is an associate medical officer of health for the Region of Peel. After completing her undergraduate degree at McGill University, she continued her studies at the University of Toronto where she completed both her master of health science in 1994 and her medical degree in 1998. She became a certificant of the College of Family Physicians of Canada in 2000 and practiced family medicine on a part-time basis from 2000 to 2003 at a community health center in Toronto. She became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada in 2004, specializing in community medicine. She also completed her master's of business administration at the Schulich School of Business in 2003. Since joining Peel Public Health in 2004, she has worked primarily with the communicable diseases and environmental health divisions, providing technical support and medical expertise to public health staff in the management of cases and infectious diseases outbreaks.
Judy Dennis is the manager of Infection Prevention and Control at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO). She is a registered respiratory therapist. Prior to her career in infection control, she worked for 18 years as a member of the Neonatal Transport Team at CHEO and for eight years as manager for Respiratory Therapy at CHEO. Dennis has served as an executive member of the College of Respiratory Therapy from 2003 to 2008, treasurer for Community Hospital Infection Control Association (CHICA) Ottawa Region (COR) from 2008 to 2010 and is currently president elect for COR. She maintains her certification in infection control (CIC) and is currently completing a degree in hospital administration.
Margaret Fearon joined Canadian Blood Services as executive medical director, Medical Microbiology in June 2004. She is assistant professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto. She was president of the Canadian Association for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (CACMID) in 2005/2006. Fearon did her medical training at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and a fellowship in medical microbiology at the University of Toronto. She worked as an associate staff member in the Department of Microbiology at the Hospital for Sick Children from 1988 to 1991, when she took the position of medical microbiologist at the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care in the Laboratories Branch from 1991 to 2004. Fearon is a current member and former chair of the Virology Committee at Quality Management Programme-Laboratory Services and is a member of the National West Nile Steering Committee, and the Canadian Public Health Lab Network. She has participated in the national, provincial and City of Toronto pandemic influenza planning committees. She is a member of the Canadian Society for Transfusion Medicine and the American Association of Blood Banks.
Martha Fulford is an infectious diseases specialist and assistant clinical professor at McMaster University Medical Centre in Hamilton.
Gary Garber is a deputy chair of the Department of Medicine, responsible for patient quality and saferty and is a member of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine at the University of Ottawa and the Ottawa Hospital. Garber is a professor in the Department of Medicine and of Biochemistry Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Ottawa and was also the chairman of the University of Ottawa Medical Associates, the academic practice plan for approximately 200 internists for over 11 years. He is currently vice-chair of patient quality relations within the Department of Medicine. Garber received a doctorate of medicine from the University of Calgary and did his internal medicine training at the University of Toronto and infectious disease training and Medical Research Council of Canada (MRC) fellowship at the University of British Columbia. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Disease Society of America. Garber is a previous president of the Canadian Infectious Disease Society, a founder of the Canadian Association for HIV Research, was a founding director of the Ontario HIV Treatment Network and a member of the American Society for Microbiology. He is a leader in establishing a regional infection control program for the Champlain Region of Eastern Ontario and is also on the City of Ottawa Steering Committee for Pandemic Influenza Planning. He is currently developing an Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at the Ottawa Hospital. With over 300 papers and abstracts, Garber's research interests include the appropriate use of antibiotics and evaluating novel antibiotics and antifungal agents in nosocomial infection (pneumonia, neutropenia, sepsis) and viral hepatitis. His laboratory studies the pathogenesis of Trichomonas vaginalis, a sexually transmitted vaginal infection, as well as the mechanisms of Septic Shock.
Ian Gemmill has been the medical officer of health for Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington Public Health since 1997. Previously, he was the associate medical officer of health for the Ottawa-Carleton Health Department from 1981 to 1997 and was director of the Ottawa-Carleton Health Department (OCHD) Sexual Health Clinic. He is a graduate of the Faculty of Medicine at Queen’s University, a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in Community Medicine and an honorary life member of the Canadian Public Health Association. Gemmill has 29 years of experience in public health in Ontario and has a strong interest in communicable diseases, immunization, sexually transmitted diseases, sexual health and tobacco use control. He is past chair of the Canadian Coalition for Immunization Awareness & Promotion (CCIAP). He has served on a number of other national and provincial committees on communicable diseases and immunization, including the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) from 1996 to 2003, the Board of the National Cancer Institute of Canada from 2007 to 2009 and the Board of Directors of the Canadian Public Health Association. Gemmill is an associate professor in the Departments of Community Health & Epidemiology and of Family Medicine at Queen’s University, and is currently director of the Community Medicine Residency Programme at Queen’s University in Kingston.
Effie Gournis currently manages Toronto Public Health’s Communicable Disease Surveillance Unit, where she develops and applies epidemiologic methods to monitor and investigate communicable disease activity in Toronto. Gournis has a master’s of public health in infectious disease epidemiology from Yale University’s School of Medicine and a master’s of science in zoology from the University of Toronto. Gournis has worked in TB epidemiology with San Francisco’s Department of Public Health, malaria control and prevention with the Pasteur Institute, food-borne illness surveillance with the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and as an HIV/AIDS advisor for an advocacy program in New York State. She currently holds an assistant professor appointment with the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.
Heather Hague is a registered nurse who graduated from the Wellesley Hospital School of Nursing. She holds a master of education in integrated studies where her research focused on nurses and learning in a public health domain. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in health studies from Brock University. Hague is a past president of the Hamilton and Neighbouring Districts Infection Control (HANDIC), and was on the Community and Hospital Infection Control Association of Canada (CHICA-Canada) Board of Directors from 1988 to 1991. She has been certified in infection prevention and control since 1985. Hague has worked in the field of infection prevention and control for many years. Her other work experience includes a variety of health settings, small and medium sized community hospitals, and public health. Currently, she is the manager of the Infection Disease Program at Niagara Region Public Health.
Kevin Katz is the medical director of Infection Prevention and Control at North York General Hospital, and medical coordinator of the Central Region Infection Control Network. He is a medical microbiologist and infectious diseases specialist and an assistant professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto. Katz’s special research interests include healthcare-acquired infections and multidrug resistant organisms. His research publications focus primarily on Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), including optimal laboratory detection, body site colonization, and the emergence of community-associated MRSA.
Ian Kitai trained in medicine in South Africa, in pediatrics in the United Kingdom (UK) and Canada, and in pediatric infectious diseases in Toronto. He worked for three years in rural Zimbabwe for Oxfam UK and for two years in Northern Manitoba with the Northern Medical Unit of the University of Manitoba. Since 1997, Kitai has been the TB specialist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and a staff member in the Division of Infectious Diseases. From 2003, he also served as medical consultant to the Infection Control Department at the Rouge Valley Health System (RVHS). In 2004, Kitai received the Council Award from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario in part for his work at RVHS during SARS. He has a consulting practice in pediatrics and infectious diseases in Ajax, and is a member of Department of Pediatrics at the RVHS. He is an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Toronto.
Faron Kolbe is the manager of Health Informatics in the Communicable Disease Control Program at Toronto Public Health. He has worked in the public health field since 1990. Kolbe is a certified public health inspector and epidemiologist. He graduated from McMaster University, Faculty of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics in 1998 with a master's of science in health research methodology and completed his bachelor of applied science in environmental health from Ryerson University in 1991. Kolbe has had extensive experience in large scale infectious disease outbreak response in the City of Toronto including SARS, Legionnaires’ disease and H1N1. He also has considerable experience in the development, implementation and management of public health information systems used to collect, analyze and translate data into information that supports disease surveillance, management and public health response. Kolbe is a member of the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Canadian Institutes of Health Research Influenza Research Network (PCIRN) vaccine coverage theme group that is accessing methodologies for improving vaccine coverage.
Nicole Le Saux is an associate professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa and an infectious diseases physician and medical director of Infection Prevention and Control at the Ottawa Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario. Le Saux is certified in internal medicine, infectious diseases and pathology. She has been a member of Immunization Monitoring Program ACTIVE (IMPACT) since 2002 and is a member of the Canadian Pediatric Society Infectious Diseases Committee. Le Saux is an investigator on the burden of rotavirus disease in Canadian children, conducting surveillance of rotavirus infections in hospitalized patients. She recently co-authored an economic analysis of rotavirus implementation in Canada. In addition to being a passionate clinician, Le Saux’s research interests also include: uptake of influenza vaccine, community acquired MRSA infections and meningococcal disease.
Allison McGeer trained in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the University of Toronto, then completed a fellowship in hospital epidemiology at Yale New Haven Hospital from 1989 to 1990. She has been involved in pandemic influenza planning at international, national, provincial, regional and local levels. McGreer is currently a member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America Guideline Expert Advisory Group on Antivirals for Influenza. Her areas of research interest are the epidemiology of influenza infection, the prevention of health care associated infection, and adult immunization. She has current research funding from, among others, the United States National Institutes of Health, the United Kingdom Health Protection Agency, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Canadian Patient Safety Institute.
Chris O'Callaghan received his doctorate of veterinary medicine degree from the University of Guelph. After two years in mixed-animal practice, he returned to undertake research in tropical veterinary medicine. Supported by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), he completed a preliminary assessment of the epidemiology of tick-borne diseases on smallholder dairy farms in the central Kenyan highlands. This work formed the basis of his master's of science in veterinary epidemiology. He was awarded a Medical Research Council of Canada (MRC) fellowship to continue his research and training and returned to the smallholder farms of Kenya to complete a year long study of the epidemiology of Theileriosis, conducting laboratory analyses at the International Laboratory for Research on Animal Diseases (ILRAD) in Nairobi. In 1994, O'Callaghan joined the Ecology & Epidemiology Group of the University of Warwick as a visiting researcher to undertake further training in analytical methods and mathematical modelling of infectious diseases, and became a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons the same year. Under a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded project, O'Callaghan expanded his research on tick-borne diseases to include Heartwater in Zimbabwe and was appointed a joint University of Warwick/International Livestock Research Institute Research fellow. After completing his PhD in analytical epidemiology and becoming a British citizen, he accepted a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship and was promoted to senior research fellow. In 2000, O'Callaghan was seconded to Queen's University as an adjunct professor. He accepted a position as assistant professor and joined the National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group, where, in addition to his duties as project co-coordinator, he continues his research on the epidemiology of tick-borne diseases of human and livestock.
As a member of the Executive Committee, George Pasut provides senior leadership to PHO in the further development and implementation of the strategic plan. Pasut oversees the operational portfolios involved with the delivery of scientific and public health programs within Surveillance and Epidemiology, Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, Health Promotion, Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention, and Environmental and Occupational Health. Pasut has extensive public health leadership experience, having served as associate chief medical officer of health, Public Health System Policy and Planning, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care; medical officer of health and chief executive officer of the Simcoe County Health Unit; and as a senior medical consultant and physician manager in the Public Health Branch and as acting director of the Health Promotion branch of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. Most recently, Pasut was at Cancer Care Ontario where he was vice-president of Prevention and Screening.
Doug Sider leads PHO’s team of infectious disease control specialists to develop and enhance provincial capacity in infection and communicable disease prevention and control.
Lee Sieswerda has a master’s degree in epidemiology from the University of Alberta. He has been epidemiologist at the Thunder Bay District Health Unit since 2001. He is also assistant professor of public health at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine and in the Public Health Program at Lakehead University, where he teaches applied epidemiology. He is currently chair of the Pandemic Influenza Surveillance Committee for the District of Thunder Bay and a member of the Ontario Hepatitis C Task Force. Sieswerda’s main interests are the application of epidemiological methods to practical public health problems as well as infectious disease and outbreak epidemiology.
Kathryn Suh is the associate director of Infection Prevention and Control at the Ottawa Hospital. Prior to her appointment at the Ottawa Hospital, she was the director of Infection Prevention and Control at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa. Suh is certified by the Certification Board of Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. (CIC), has her medical doctorate and is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada. Suh is also an infectious diseases physician at the Ottawa Hospital and an associate professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa.
Mary Vearncombe is a medical microbiologist and is medical director of Infection Prevention and Control at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. She is an associate professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Vearncombe is chair of the OHA/OMA Joint Committee for Development of Communicable Disease Surveillance Protocols for Ontario Hospitals, chair of the Expert Panel on Infection Control for the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto, a member of the Steering Committee on Infection Control Guidelines of Health Canada, chair of the Health Canada working group on Infection Prevention and Control and Occupational Health Guidelines for Pandemic Influenza and medical coordinator of the Region Infection Control Network (RICN). Vearncombe is a past president of the Canadian Association of Medical Microbiologists and a past chair of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Specialty Committee in Medical Microbiology. In 2005, she was the recipient of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada Distinguished Service Award. In 2007, she received the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario Council Award and in 2010, she received the inaugural Community and Hospital Infection Control Association (CHICA-Canada) Champion Award. Vearncombe has over 25 years of experience in infection control, with specific areas of interest in perinatal infection control and infection control issues in occupational health.
Bryna Warshawsky is the associate medical officer of health and director of Communicable Disease and Sexual Health Services for the Middlesex-London Health Unit. She graduated from McGill University with as a doctor of medicine in 1986. After working as a family practitioner for three years, Warshawsky returned to the University of Toronto and obtained a master of health science in epidemiology and biostatistics, and a fellowship from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Community Medicine. Warshawsky joined the Middlesex-London Health Unit in September 1994 where her main areas of responsibilities are the prevention and control of communicable diseases and development of sexual health programming. Her areas of interest include vaccine preventable diseases and outbreak management. She is currently a member of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization. Warshawsky is cross-appointed in both the Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and Family Medicine at the University of Western Ontario.
Barbara Yaffe is the director of Communicable Disease Control and associate medical officer of health for Toronto Public Health. She is a graduate of the University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine with a master’s degree in community health and epidemiology and completed a fellowship in community medicine. She is also an assistant professor with the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Toronto. Yaffe was a key leader in the investigation and management of the SARS outbreak in Toronto. She is a member of the OHA/OMA/MOHLTC Communicable Disease Protocol Committee and the Ontario Public Health e-Health Council.
Dick Zoutman is professor and chair of the Divisions of Medical Microbiology and of Infectious Diseases Division at Queen’s University. He is also a professor of pathology and molecular medicine, of community health and epidemiology, and of medicine at Queen's University. A primary focus of Zoutman’s investigative work has been the use of modern quality improvement methods in the prevention and control of health care associated infections as well as new sterilization and disinfection methods. Zoutman is past physician-director of the Board of the Community and Hospital Infection Control Association of Canada having served for 12 years. During the 2003 outbreak of SARS in Toronto, Zoutman chaired the Ontario SARS Scientific Advisory Committee responsible for advising the Ontario Government on management strategies of the SARS outbreak. |
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