On April 19th, the Department of Family Medicine in collaboration with the School of Population and Global Health at McGill University, hosted a seminar entitled “Death of a platitude: The limits of foundational concepts in primary care,” inviting guest speakers Dr. Danielle Martin, Chair of the Department of Family & Community Medicine, University of Toronto and Pierre-Gerlier Forest, CEO, Institut national de santé publique du Québec. This was the fourth seminar in the 3rd edition of the Global Primary Health Care seminar series “Health workers and frontline care in the post-COVID-19 context” which draws on evidence and insights, both local and global, on how to revitalize Canada’s health workforce and primary care.
Thank you to our guest speakers and all those who participated in the seminar!
Click here to view the recording: https://youtu.be/GjVn6B4tn48
Speaker bios
Danielle Martin is the chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine since October 2021 and a professor in the Institute for Health Policy Management and Evaluation, and the School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Toronto. She is a clinician and teacher at Women’s College Hospital where she has served as Executive Vice President, Lead Medical Executive and the medical lead of the hospital’s pandemic response, as well as co-founding WIHV, the Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care. In 2006, her first year of practice, she helped launch Canadian Doctors for Medicare, representing Canadian physicians who believe in a high quality, equitable, and sustainable health system and chaired its board until 2013. She was named Canada’s 8th most powerful doctor by The Medical Post in September 2015 and is a regular contributor in the media. As an outspoken advocate for Canada’s health-care system, she was invited to speak to the United States Senate Sub-committee in March 2014. The video of her testimony went viral on YouTube, with over 1.7 million views.
Pierre-Gerlier Forest is the CEO of the Institut national de santé publique du Québec. Mr. Forest has been a professor at several Canadian and American universities, including Université Laval, Université de Montréal and the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Since 2016, he has been Full Professor of Public Health in the Department of Community Health, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, and until 2021 he has held the James S. and Barbara Chair in Research A. Palmer in Public Policy at the same university. In addition, Mr. Forest has an excellent knowledge of federal and provincial public health. He was a member of the working group responsible for setting up the Public Health Agency of Canada. He was also CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. Mr. Forest has also advised governments, health organizations and research institutions in Canada, the United States and Europe.
