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Dr. Hitesh Bhanabhai has been a Palliative Care Physician at the McGill University Health Centre since 2013. He is mainly based out of the Inpatient Consultation Service at the Glen Site. His teaching duties mainly include medical undergraduate lectures, core teaching to our palliative care residents, and being a small group facilitator. In addition, he is clinical supervisor to medical undergraduate students and postgraduate residents. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine. His areas of interest incude advanced care planning and non-cancer palliative medicine. |
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Dr. Manuel Borod is the Director of the Division of Supportive and Palliative Care Programs for the MUHC and an Assisant Professor in the Department of Oncology. Manny practiced family medicine for 20 years prior to embarking on a career in palliative care. He developed the Home Care Program at Mount Sinai Hospital prior to coming to the MUHC on a full-time basis. He has a particular interest in the role of humour in palliative care and has long been a dedicated teacher and mentor to medical students and residents. |
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Dr. Stéfanie Gingras is an Assistant Professor at McGill University. She has worked exclusively in Palliative Care at the MUHC for the last 19 years and currently practices at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Glen Site. She is particularly interested in clinical teaching, difficult communications with patients and their families, and the psychological aspect of the Palliative Care experience. Dr. Gingras is a graduate of McGill in Family Medicine and holds a Fellowship and a Certificate of Added Competency in Palliative Care from the College of Family Physicians of Canada. She is the Director of the Clinical Teaching Unit and the Associate Director of the Palliative Care Department at the MUHC. |
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Dr. Jordi Perez is an Anesthesiologist specialist in pain management. He graduated in Medicine and then Anesthesiology in Barcelona, Spain and then pursued his career as a pain clinician after a two-year combined research and clinical pain fellowship at McGill. He obtained his PhD degree with a research on dietary modifications and experimental neuropathic pain and practiced pain medicine in Spain and England before joining McGill in 2012. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Anesthesia at McGill University and has been appointed Director of McGill Pain Medicine Residency Program. We works as a pain specialist at the Alan Edwards Pain Management Unit and at the MUHC Cancer Pain Clinic which he has been codirecting since 2015. Jordi is interested in the management of cancer pain management with interventional approaches such as nerve blocks, neurolysis, cement augmentation techniques or spinal drug delivery systems offered within the context of an interdisciplinary approach. As a researcher, he is currently PI of several projects focused on the outcomes of an interdisciplinary approach to cancer pain and the management of cancer pain with methadone. |
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Dr. Anna Towers was the Chair for the International Congress on Palliative Care from 2004-2014 and is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Medicine, Family Medicine and Oncology. She has been a Palliative Care Physician since 1993. She was Director of the Palliative Care Division, McGill University and the MUHC from 1999 - 2009. Anna has an academic interest in communication in the context of chronic, life-threatening illness and on adaptation to life change. In 2000, she helped to establish the first Palliative Medicine residency training program in Canada. She has co-authored a book on narratives on palliative care as well as numerous articles in the areas of ethics and the psychosocial impact of illness. Anna's subspecialty area of interest is cancer rehabilitation, particularly lymphedema prevention and treatment. She is the Director of the McGill Lymphedema Research Program and Founder and Co-Chair of the Canadian Lymphedema Framework, which is responsible for drafting and promoting best practice guidelines, minimal data sets and educational endeavors at a national and international level. Anna is a recognized advocate for lymphedema reimbursement in Quebec and received the Award of Excellence from the Lymphedema Association of Quebec. |
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2002, Dr. Antonio Vigano joined the Supportive and Palliative Care Division at McGill University as Assistant Professor. He is now Associate Professor in the Department of Oncology, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University. He has been practicing palliative care medicine for over 30 years both in Europe and in Canada. As Director of Cancer Rehabilitation and Medical Cannabis Program in Oncology at the Cedars Cancer Center of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) in Montreal, Dr Vigano has spearheaded clinical access, education and research in the field of Supportive Cancer Care and Medicinal Cannabis. Dr. Vigano has either first or senior authorship on over 55 publications in peer reviewed journals, 40 invited lectures, 115 peer-reviewed published abstracts and four book chapters. These reflect his clinical interests and expertise and include: the organization of the first palliative care unit in Italy within a public hospital, prognostication in terminal cancer patients, age-related changes in opioid consumption, cancer cachexia assessment and management, prevalence and impact of hypogonadism in male cancer patients, cancer pre-habilitation and rehabilitation and more recently the role of medicinal cannabis in pain and symptom management, supportive and palliative care. Dr. Vigano was appointed Expert on Medical Cannabis by the Court of Quebec, created the first world-wide post-doctoral research fellowship in medicinal cannabis and cancer supportive care at the McGill’s Gerald Bronfman Department of Oncology and developed the first cannabis clinic within a quaternary oncology center. Dr Vigano is the Principal Investigator of the Quebec Cannabis Registry, a Canadian, prospective, province-wide, pharmaco-vigilance study on safety and effectiveness of medical cannabis, which recruited and followed up to 4 years over 3000 patients. |