Conference Speakers

 

Dr. Hy Bloom

Hy Bloom is a forensic psychiatrist (and lawyer by background) who assesses individuals whose psychological and emotional state, motivation, or behaviour are of potential relevance in a criminal, civil, professional regulatory, or employment matter. He is a Director of workplace.calm Inc., consultants in Workplace Conflict and Violence Prevention and Management, and a founding Associate of PSILEX Group, Consultants in Behavioural Sciences and the Law. He is also a part-time staff member in the Law and Mental Health Program at the Centre for Addition and Mental Health, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto, an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McMaster University, and adjunct faculty at University of Toronto’s Law School. Dr. Bloom is a psychiatric member and Alternate Chair on both the Ontario and Nunavut Review Boards. He has spoken and published extensively on a number of topics in psychiatry and the law. His newest book (with Justice Richard Schneider), Law and Mental Disorder: A Comprehensive and Practical Approach (Toronto: Irwin Law), was released in May 2013.

Dr. Maureen Cividino

Dr. Cividino completed her MD and family medicine residency at McMaster University. In 1998 she received both her certification with the Canadian Board of Occupational Medicine andDiploma in Occupational Health and Safety. She has maintained her Certification in Infection Prevention Control and Epidemiology originally obtained in 2008, and provides IPAC Physician support to Public Health Ontario and is a member of the PIDAC Infection Prevention and Control Committee. Dr. Cividino is Co-Chair of the OHA/OMA Communicable Disease SurveillanceProtocols Committee, Past-Chair of the OMA Section on Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Past- President of the Occupational and Environmental Medical Association of Canada.

Dr. Ray Copes

Ray studied psychology and biology at Simon Fraser University, obtained his MD and MSc at McGill and did his residency training in Family Medicine and in Occupational and Environmental. He has worked as an occupational physician in industry and then with the Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Division, a Medical Consultant in Environmental Health, Risk Assessment and Toxicology, Director of Environmental Health and the founding Scientific Director of the National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health. Since July 2009, he has been Director of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion in Toronto. Ray has taught courses in environmental health, toxicology, risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. He holds appointments as a Clinical Professor at the University of British Columbia and Associate Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto.

Dr. Ron Dembo

Dr. Ron Dembo is the founder and CEO of Zerofootprint, a company targeting massive, positive behavioural change. Prior to Zerofootprint, Dr. Dembo was the founder and CEO of Algorithmics Inc, growing it from a start-up to the world’s largest enterprise risk software company until it was sold to Fitch in 2005 and then IBM in 2012. Algorithmics was recognised as one of Canada’s 50 best managed companies during his tenure. He had a distinguished 10 year academic career as Professor of Operations Research and Computer Science at Yale University. He sits on a number of boards and was honored as a Lifetime Fields Institute Fellow for his contribution to Canadian mathematics in 2007. Dr. Dembo has authored three books and over 60 scientific papers.

Dr. Paul Demers

Paul Demers is the Director of the Occupational Cancer Research Centre, based within Cancer Care Ontario and is also the Scientific Director of CAREX Canada.  He is a Professor with the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto and an epidemiologist whose research has focused primarily on occupational and environmental cancer, lung disease, and heart disease. He has a PhD in epidemiology and a Master’s degree in occupational hygiene.  He has been a member of many national and international expert panels dealing with occupational and environmental cancer for organizations such as the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the U.S. National Toxicology Program, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Royal Society of Canada, the Council of Canadian Academies, the U.S. Institute of Medicine, the Health Effects Institute, and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists.

Dr. Charl Els

Charl Els qualified as a Psychiatrist in South Africa and has been practicing in Canada since 1999. He is certified in Addiction Medicine and works part-time at the Military. He is the author of a Health Canada funded textbook on tobacco control. Els sits on the University of Alberta’s Health Research Ethics board and also on that of the Canadian Society of Medical Evaluators.

Dr. Robin Griffiths

Rob Griffiths is the Director of Occupational & Aviation Medicine at the University of Otago, New Zealand. He leads a team of 20 academics who distance-teach aviation medicine, occupational medicine and aeromedical retrieval and transport to doctors around the world. He left the Royal Air Force to become the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Transport in 1984, and still works as the medical consultant to the NZ Transport Accident Investigation Commission, Airways NZ, and a number of airlines. His other part-time commitments include being a consultant to the Accident Compensation Corporation and BP International. He also works in Washington State, on the adjunct professorial staff of the University of Washington and on grants from the Department of Labor & Industries. He is the Foundations Program Director for the American College of Occupational & Environmental Medicine.

Dr. Linn Holness

Dr. Holness is an occupational medicine physician and a professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto.  She is the Director of the Division of Occupational Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto and Chief of the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health at St Michael’s Hospital.  She is the Director of the Centre for Research Expertise in Occupational Disease which focuses on common non-malignant occupational diseases.  Her research interests include occupational skin and lung disease, occupational health services.  Her research has focused on prevention, health care utilization, diagnosis, return to work and outcomes related to occupational skin disease and increasing awareness of occupational exposures and diseases for health care providers.

Dr. Ron House

Ron House is a specialist in Occupational Medicine and a Clinical Epidemiologist in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto. He is also an Adjunct Scientist in the Keenan Research Centre, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michael’s Hospital. He was the Occupational Medicine Program Director at the University of Toronto from 1995-2012 and an Associate Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health with a cross appointment to the Department of Medicine, University of Toronto. He is also currently an Associate Professor in the Northern Ontario School of Medicine and Laurentian University. He is a founding member of the Centre for Research Expertise in Occupational Disease (CREOD) at the University of Toronto and he has been involved in Occupational Health Research for many years.

Dr. Kevin Katz

Dr. Kevin Katz is the Medical Director of Infection Prevention and Control at North York General Hospital. He is a Medical Microbiologist and Infectious Diseases specialist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto. He is a member of the PIDAC Infection Prevention and Control Committee for Public Health Ontario, as well as a member of the Quality Management Program- Laboratory Services Microbiology Expert Committee. He has special research interests in healthcare-acquired infections and multidrug resistant organisms.

Dr. Jay Keystone

Dr. Keystone graduated from University of Toronto Medical School in 1969 where he received the Cody gold medal that should help when he retires.  He trained in internal medicine in Toronto and at the University of Michigan Medical Center.  After obtaining his fellowship in internal medicine (which he gave up in 1995 to save lives) , he studied at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where he received his master’s degree in Clinical Tropical Medicine in 1974. He was the Director of the Tropical Disease Unit at the Toronto General Hospital until 1997. He is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto and the Director of the Toronto Medisys Travel Health Clinic.

He is past president of the International Society of Travel Medicine, and the clinical group of the American Society of Tropical Medicine. As a clinical parasitologist ,he has been caring for patients with delusional parasitosis for many years, more recently with moderate success. Dr.Keystone has been awarded the Ben Kean Medal for excellence in education and mentoring from the American Society of Tropical Medicine and more recently, membership into the Order of Canada.

Dr. Barry Kurtzer

Dr. Barry Kurtzer is Medical Director and Chief Medical Review Officer for DriverCheck Inc. of Ayr, Ontario, a company providing comprehensive workplace Drug and Alcohol Testing Programs and Occupational Health Services to more than 6000 Canadian corporate clients nationally. A 1975 graduate of the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine, Dr. Kurtzer is a U.S. certified drug and alcohol testing Medical Review Officer specialist, and was instrumental in introducing mandatory U.S. Department of Transportation drug and alcohol testing regulations and programs to the Canadian transportation industry landscape in 1995. He has practiced with a special full time interest in Occupational Medicine since 1977 both privately and for major health care provider corporations, and is currently a member of the Executive of the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Section of the Ontario Medical Association. With the recent changes to Canada’s Medical Marijuana laws and predictions of a significant rise in the numbers of Canadian workers who may be authorized to use this medicinal product, Dr. Kurtzer has analyzed the potential impacts of these new regulations on the workplace and on occupational health care professionals alike, and will present a practical approach to managing Medical Marijuana in the workplace.

Dr. Carolyn Langer

Dr. Carolyn Langer is the Chief Medical Officer for the Massachusetts Medicaid program that provides health insurance to the state’s most vulnerable populations.  In this role, she directs the Office of Clinical Affairs and provides clinical leadership to the Medicaid program.  She has an extensive career as a physician executive, including positions as Medical Director at a number of group health plans and as Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at ManagedComp (a managed care workers’ compensation company). Dr. Langer is an Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and an Instructor at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH).  She teaches a graduate course at the HSPH on Occupational Health Law, Policy and Administration and also sits on the HSPH Occupational Medicine Residency Advisory Committee.  Dr. Langer also sits on the Advisory Board for the Health Policy and Management Department at the Boston University School of Public Health. Dr. Langer received her medical degree from Jefferson Medical College and completed her residency at the Harvard School of Public Health. She is board certified in occupational medicine. Dr. Langer holds a law degree and a Masters in Public Health from Harvard University. She is also a retired Colonel and former flight surgeon in the Army National Guard.

Dr. YM Markus

Dr. Mick Markus is co-founder and Chief Medical Officer at Vector Medical. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, with a specialty designation in Occupational Medicine, as well as a member in good-standing of the Occupational Medicine Specialists of Canada. He sits on the examination committee for Occupational Medicine with the Royal College. Dr. Markus holds a Masters of Public Health & Tropical Medicine from Tulane University and has specific interest in the medical issues associated with work in high-risk environments. Dr. Markus has served as a medical director and consultant to some of the largest disability management and occupational health organizations in Canada, and continues in this role in both the private industry as well as in the health-care sector. He is a Medical Consultant for the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, as well as the Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal. Dr. Markus is a certified Medical review Officer for US DOT and non-DOT drug testing in the workplace. He holds an Opioid Dependence Treatment Certificate and has extensive experience as an addiction medicine physician. Additionally, he has served as a death investigator for the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario since 2009.

Dr. Alison McGeer

Dr. 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 in 1989/90. Her areas of research interest are the epidemiology of influenza, the prevention of healthcare associated infection, and antimicrobial resistance. She was the clinical research lead for the SARS outbreak investigation in Ontario, worked on the investigation of the first outbreak of MERS-CoV in Saudi Arabia, and spent three month in Liberia on a WHO deployment as the national focal point for infection prevention and control in 2014.

Dr. Cameron Mustard

Dr. Mustard is a Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. He is also President and Senior Scientist, Institute for Work & Health. Dr Mustard is an experienced strategic leader, strong communicator and productive scientist who currently leads an internationally-respected research agency with a mandate to provide high-quality evidence on the effectiveness of prevention, treatment and return-to-work in work-related disorders. The Institute for Work & Health has been ranked “among the top five research institutes in the world” focused on worker health protection. Dr Mustard is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Institute for Health Information, a Fellow of the Population Health Program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and a past recipient of a CIHR Scientist award.

Dr. Joan Saary

Dr. Saary completed medical residency in Occupational Medicine at the University of Toronto. She also holds an MSc in Clinical Psychology from the University of Calgary and a PhD in Health Services research from the University of Toronto – where she is currently an Assistant Professor in the Division of Occupational Medicine. She is a consultant to various organizations including the RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force) and the Canadian Space Agency. Working together with representatives of the 4 other partner nations (Russia, Japan, Europe and USA), she serves as Chair of the Medical Standards working group for the International Space Station program. She is the past-President of OMSOC (Occupational Medicine Specialists of Canada), and Vice-President of the OMA Section in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Dr. Danial Schecter

Dr. Danial Schecter is co-founder of the Cannabinoid Medical Clinic and a practicing family physician. After working alongside some of Canada’s leading researchers in the field of medical cannabis, Dr. Schecter developed a strong interest in the therapeutic use of cannabinoids. Dr. Schecter is considered a medical expert in the field of prescription cannabinoids and medical marijuana, has given numerous presentations to fellow physicians and developed educational programs on the subject.

Dr. Sebastian Straube

Dr. Sebastian Straube holds degrees in Medicine and Physiology from the University of Oxford (England) where he also did his DPhil (PhD). After clinical work and research at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals, Dr. Straube joined the Institute of Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine at the University Medical Center Göttingen, Germany. Here he completed his Habilitation (postdoctoral qualification) and postgraduate medical training in Occupational Medicine and Social Medicine. Dr. Straube was an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Göttingen until August 2014 and in September 2014 took up his current post as Associate Professor in the Division of Preventive Medicine of the University of Alberta and Specialist in Occupational Medicine with Alberta Health Services. Dr. Straube’s primary research interest is in evidence-based medicine (systematic reviews and meta-analyses); research areas of interest include occupational medicine and pain. Dr. Straube serves on the editorial boards of several journals including Pain, BioMed Research International, and International Scholarly Research Notices as well as the Cochrane Collaboration (Pain, Palliative and Supportive Care review group and Cochrane Work review group).

Dr. Susan Tarlo

Dr Susan M Tarlo is a respiratory physician and a Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto with an academic cross-appointment in the University of Toronto, Dalla Lana Department of Public Health.  Her main clinical staff appointment is at the University Health Network, at Toronto Western Hospital where she is head of the Occupational Lung Disease Clinic and also has a focus on asthma and allergic respiratory disease. She has a research appointment at the Gage Occupational and Environmental Health Unit in Toronto and the Centre for Research Excellence in Occupational Disease at St Michael’s Hospital where she also has a cross-appointment in occupational medicine and an occupational lung specialty clinic.  Her research interests are mainly in work-related asthma and occupational allergy, and she has over 200 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters.

Dr. Aaron Thompson

Dr. Thompson is a Specialist Physician in Occupational Medicine and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He holds an appointment at the University of Toronto as Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and is cross appointed at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Dr. Thompson is the acting director of the Occupational Medicine Residency Program at the University of Toronto. Dr. Thompson is the Medical Director, Occupational Disease, at the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB). Prior to becoming Medical Director Occupational Disease at the WSIB, Dr. Thompson worked as an Occupational Medicine Physician Consultant in Industry and as a Roster Physician for the Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal. Dr. Thompson maintains his clinical practice at St. Michael’s Hospital in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health where he routinely assesses and manages toxicology cases involving heavy metals, solvents and other toxicants.

Dr. Eugene Wen

Dr. Eugene Wen is the Vice President and Chief Statistician at the Workplace Safety & Insurance Board (WSIB). He is responsible for the Corporate Statistics Division. He advises senior management on evidence-based decision making, develops strategic projects and capacity in advance analytics, assesses factors related to injured worker benefit liability and return to work, and builds predictive models to inform strategic and claim decisions. Eugene also facilitates cross-organizational collaborations on analytical affairs and liaises with the external research community and agencies. Prior to his current position at the WSIB, Eugene spent 10 years at the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). At CIHI Eugene led the development of the national health indicators and productions of Canadian annual Health Indicators report series. The latter is a join CIHI-Statistics Canada publications and provides statistics on the health system and population health at the national, provincial/territorial, and local regional levels. Eugene was trained in both clinical medicine and public health.

Speakers French