ARCC Conference 2015

Dr. Charlotte Chamberlain is a public health and palliative care doctor currently working at the University of Bristol and the Bristol Royal Infirmary. Dr. Chamberlain trained in Medicine at the Royal Free and University College London Medical School and intercalated a degree in Global Health. Following a Masters in Epidemiology, at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Dr Chamberlain has pursued a career in public health medicine in the South West region of England (2008 to present day). She is currently completing a PhD on ‘access to non-curative anti-cancer therapies on the NHS’ funded by the National Institute for Health Research (UK) at the University of Bristol. Her research interests, around cancer at the end of life and balancing priorities in publicly-funded health systems, have informed the on-going debate about the rationale for the Cancer Drugs Fund in England.

Primary Affiliation: University of Bristol

Dr. Craig Earle is a medical oncologist specializing in gastrointestinal cancers at Sunnybrook’s Odette Cancer Centre, the Director of Health Services Research for Cancer Care Ontario and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, a Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, and a Senior Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. Dr. Earle originally trained and practiced in Ottawa, after which he spent 10 years between 1998 – 2008 in Boston at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. While there, he was the founding Director of the Lance Armstrong Foundation Adult Survivorship Clinic at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is currently Chair of the Ontario Steering Committee for Cancer Drug Programs. His personal research interests focus on evaluating and improving the quality of care received by patients with advanced cancer and cancer survivors, the effect of financial incentives on care delivery, and making linked de-identified administrative data more available for health research.

Primary Affiliation: The Institute for Clinical Evaluative

Ms. Kroon served primarily as a clinician working with pediatric, adult, and elderly patients at University Hospitals (Quebec and Switzerland), in community health settings, and in long-term care facilities. She also taught nursing at college and university levels. For the past fifteen years, she has held management positions in the Quebec health network and at the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS). She has been in charge of provincial mandates on issues related to chronic diseases, primary care services and service trajectory for elderly within the health network, including those who accessed it through emergency departments. She is currently responsible for provincial workforce planning in nursing, as well as initial and continuous training.

She completed a bachelor’s degree in Nursing at laval University in 1990, and a Master’s degree in Medical Law and Ethics at King’s College, University of London, UK, in 1993.

Mme Kroon a exercé comme clinicienne principalement auprès de clientèles pédiatriques, adultes et de personnes âgées, en centre hospitalier universitaire (Québec et Suisse), à domicile et en soins de longue durée. Elle a également enseigné en soins infirmiers au niveau collégial et universitaire. Depuis les quinze dernières années, elle a occupé des fonctions de cadre dans le réseau ainsi qu’au ministère de la santé et des services sociaux (MSSS). Elle a été responsable de dossiers nationaux touchant les maladies chroniques, les services de première ligne et la trajectoire des personnes âgées dans le réseau, dont celles qui transitent par les départements d’urgence. Elle est actuellement responsable de dossiers de planification de main-d’œuvre en soins infirmiers, ainsi que de formation initiale et continue.

Elle est diplômée de l’Université Laval au baccalauréat en Sciences infirmières (1990) et du King’s Collège à l’Université de Londres, à la maîtrise en Éthique et droit médical (1993).

Dr. Andrew Loblaw is a Radiation Oncologist, Clinician Scientist, and dual Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology and the Institute of Health Policy Management & Evaluation at the University of Toronto.

He received a Bachelor of Science in Physics from the University of British Columbia and his Doctor of Medicine from Queen’s University. He completed his specialty training in Radiation Oncology concurrent with a Masters degree in Clinical Epidemiology to graduate from Royal College’s Clinician Investigator Program all at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Loblaw’s clinical practice and research interest focus on improving outcomes for men with prostate cancer and the healthcare system. He has a particularly interest in the design and conduct of clinical trials, the generation and dissemination of evidence-based guidelines and in image-guided radiotherapy.

Dr. Loblaw is an Ontario Association of Radiation Oncology Clinician Scientist and a Scientist at the Sunnybrook Research Institute. He is Medical Director for Sunnybrook International’s Prostate Cancer Centres of Excellence, the North American Editor for Clinical Oncology, the Co-Chair of the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Genitourinary Advisory Group, and Co-Chair of the GU group for Cancer Care Ontario’s Program in Evidence-Based Care. He has authored over 150 peer-reviewed papers and has been awarded grant funding of over $17M.

Primary Affiliation: Sunnybrook Research Institute

Raghu Rajan is a medical oncologist at the McGill University Health Centre with an interest in the management of colorectal cancer and genitourinary cancers, and serves as the disease site lead for lower gastrointestinal cancers at the MUHC. He is Associate Professor of Oncology and Medicine at McGill University, and chairs the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee of the MUHC. Dr. Rajan is a member of the Comité de l’evolution des pratiques en oncologie (CEPO) within INESSS and is also a member of the Programme de gestion thérapeutique des medicaments (PGTM), an initiative involving the five teaching hospitals in Quebec. After receiving his medical degree at the University of Manitoba and going through internship at McGill University, Dr. Rajan completed his training in internal medicine at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine. He subsequently undertook subspecialty fellowships in haematology and medical oncology, as well as a Terry Fox research fellowship concurrent with a Master’s degree in clinical epidemiology at McMaster University.

Primary Affiliation: McGill University Health Centre

A successful entrepreneur and business executive, champion fundraiser, and dedicated public servant, Rocco Rossi is currently President and CEO of Prostate Cancer Canada. As CEO of the Heart and Stroke Foundation – one of Canada’s largest non-profit organizations – from 2004 to 2009, Rossi oversaw four consecutive years of record fundraising raising over $500 million in total and launching many new, life-saving initiatives. His passion for public policy has led him to stand for election both for the position of Mayor of Toronto and for MPP. Mr. Rossi has held senior positions at the Boston Consulting Group, TORSTAR, Labatt/Interbrew and MGI Software. A past board member of United Way of Greater Toronto and other charities, Mr. Rossi has been an active community builder. In fact, in 2012 he was awarded the Queen’s Jubilee Medal for his Philanthropic and Community service. A dedicated adventurer, Rocco has walked the legendary Camino de Santiago 7 times, cycled the 1900 km length of Yonge Street from Rainy River to Toronto, kayaked the 500 km from Toronto to Ottawa, and climbed to Everest Base Camp. Mr. Rossi has a BA (Hons) in political science from McGill University and a Masters of Arts in politics from Princeton University. He is married to his wife of 27-years, Rhonnie, and they have a 25-year-old son, Domenic John, who attends OISE in Toronto where he is working on his Masters in Teaching.

Primary Affiliation: Prostate Cancer Canada

Mona Sabharwal is the inaugural Executive Director of the pan-Canadian Oncology Drug Review (pCODR). In this leadership role, she had responsibility to implement and operationalize a new national initiative, engaging a broad spectrum of decision makers and stakeholder, establishing a new standard for how pharmaceutical HTA is conducted in Canada and leading to pCODR’s successful launch in July 2011.  In April 2014, she successfully implemented the operational integration of pCODR into CADTH and is now leading Phase 2 of the transfer which will be looking at policy alignment of pCODR and the Common Drug Review programs.

She has worked in drug technology assessment and formulary management, in both British Columbia and Ontario, for approximately 20 years. Before joining pCODR, she was the Senior Manager for Drug Programs Management with the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. In this role, she had operational oversight of the drug submission and evaluation process for Ontario’s public drug programs.

Dr. Sabharwal is a registered pharmacist with experience in both community and hospital pharmacy practice. She has also conducted practice-based research focused on finding concrete ways to improve the delivery of pharmacist-based professional services. She obtained both her Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy and her Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Toronto

Dr. Fernand Turcotte is professor emeritus of preventive medicine and public health at Université Laval. As a co-founder of the department of social and preventive medicine, most of his research activities have borne on the prevention of chronic diseases associated with toxic exposures either in the workplace or in the general environment. The evaluation of prevention strategies is a field to which he has made contributions. He has been involved for three decades in the shaping of public policies required to improve the protection of the health of the nation, in tobacco control and exposure to asbestos.

Dr. Turcotte have completed my studies in medicine at the U of Montreal school of medicine (1967) and his Master in Public Health at Harvard University (1971). Dr. Turcotte has taught at Université Laval for all my career (1971-2005).

Primary Affiliation: Université Laval

Dr. Alice Dragomir is a Medical Scientist with the McGill University Health Centre and an Assistant Professor in the Division of Urology – Department of Surgery at McGill University. Alice’s research focuses on improving the manner in which health care is delivered to patients with prostate cancer, and for ways to optimize cost allocation for services. Alice joined ARCC in 2013, and has recently committed to Associate member status.

Dr. Jean Rousseau has been a scientific manager at the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ) since 2008. At the INSPQ, Dr. Rousseau heads the unit Analyse des politiques de dépistage et lutte contre les maladies chroniques, which is mandated by the Québec Ministry of Health and Social Services to evaluate the implementation of prenatal, newborn and cancer screening programs in Québec. Jean’s current research topics include economic evaluation modalities of screening programs and costing analysis of screening practices. Jean joined ARCC in 2012, and is an ARCC Investigator.

Dr. Lambert joined McGill University from Australia where she was a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Research Fellow at the Translational Cancer Research Unit, Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research, University of New South Wales. Her national and international standing in the area of patient education, information-seeking, caregiver research, sustainable self-management interventions, longitudinal research, and psychometrics are evidenced by high-quality publications, including winning several prizes for these and attracting highly competitive funding. Her most significant studies have included Australia’s first longitudinal caregiver well-being study, and developing a self-directed coping skills training and self-management interventions for couples facing cancer called Coping-Together. Dr. Lambert now plans to expand the reach of Coping-Together to patients and caregivers with low literacy and from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Dr. Jeffrey Hoch received his PhD in health economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. He also holds a Masters in Economics from Johns Hopkins University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Quantitative Economics and Decision Sciences from the University of California at San Diego.

An award winning teacher, Dr. Hoch has taught Health Economics and Economic Evaluation classes in Canada and internationally. In 2007, he was asked to develop and direct the Pharmacoeconomics Research Unit at Cancer Care Ontario. As Director of the unit, Dr. Hoch has pursued research making health economics more useful to decision makers.

Special interests include health services research related to cancer, mental health, and other health issues affecting poor and vulnerable populations

Dr. Stuart Peacock is Co-Director of the Canadian Centre for Applied Research in Cancer Control (ARCC). ARCC is a pan-Canadian research centre providing interdisciplinary leadership in health economics, services, policy and ethics research. Stuart is also Deputy Head of Cancer Control Research at the BC Cancer Agency, an Associate Professor in the School of Population and Public Health at UBC, and President of the International Society on Priorities in Health Care. Previously he held positions at Monash University and the University of York, UK. Stuart’s main research interests include priority setting methods, quality of life, and the economics of cancer control. He has acted as a consultant on priority setting methods to the World Health Organization and to governments in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia.