Implementation Advisory Panel for the Renewal of the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care: About

Dr. Shiela Appavoo is a general radiologist and Clinical Professor in the Department of Radiology and Diagnostic Imaging at the University of Alberta. She has an interest in breast imaging and guidelines and has been involved with guideline development with the Canadian Association of Radiologists and with Alberta Health Services. She is also interested in patient engagement and education and has chaired the Canadian Society of Breast Imaging Patient Engagement Committee. She currently chairs the Coalition for Responsible Healthcare Guidelines.

Ellen Christie is the Provincial Nurse Practitioner Director with Health PEI, where she provides leadership and support to Nurse Practitioners and their clinical teams. With a clinical background in critical care, long-term care, and community-based care, she continues to work clinically in various settings across the province. Ellen completed both her BScN and Master's of Nursing at the University of Prince Edward Island and is a second-year PhD student at Queen's University in the Faculty of Nursing. Ellen is the President-Elect with the Nurse Practitioner Association of Canada and is set to assume the role of President in January 2026.

Dr. Goodwin has been a Medical Oncologist/Clinical Epidemiologist for 35 years at Sinai Health/Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute; she treated breast cancer until 2020 and continues to conduct research focussing on contributions of host factors, notably obesity, to breast cancer. Dr. Goodwin holds an MD from the University of Ottawa (1979) and an MSc in Clinical Epidemiology from McMaster University (1990). Dr. Goodwin has served on/chaired advisory committees (including National Boards) of the Canadian Cancer Society and National Cancer Institute of Canada. She has participated in/chaired committees at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and is a member of the Steering Committee of the Early Breast Cancer Clinical Trials Group (Oxford University). She has participated in international guideline development for early and advanced breast cancer. She was Associate Editor at Journal of Clinical Oncology (2008-2016) and Inaugural Editor-in-Chief of JNCI Cancer Spectrum (2016-2021). Dr. Goodwin has over 250 peer-review publications relating to breast cancer.

Dr. Roland Grad is a physician-scientist at McGill University and a practising family doctor in Montreal. He is a regular contributor to clinical journals such as American Family Physician and associate editor of the research journal ‘Family Practice’. From 2013 to 2023, he was a member then chair of the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care. His second book, titled ‘Health Screening in Primary Care: A Practical Approach’, will be published in 2026. For the science of knowledge translation, he co-developed the Information Assessment Method (or IAM). More about the IAM can be found in his first book titled Look it up! What Patients, Doctors, Nurses, and Pharmacists Need to Know About the Internet and Primary Health Care.

Siobhan Grennan served as a Patient Partner with the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care’s 2024 national breast cancer screening guidelines update. She is a long-time content and events producer, and media management executive. She's worked for ad agencies on digital strategies, for TV networks writing and producing series and for media companies managing projects, staff and facilities. Today she splits her time between working with the Canadian Association of Retired Persons on educational partnerships and with ZoomerMedia on branded and sponsored content.

Dr. Tina Korownyk is a Professor from the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta and has served as Chair of the Department for the past three years. She works as a comprehensive Family Physician and is the Director of PEER (Patients, Experience, Evidence, Research), a grassroots organization committed to advancing primary care through the use of high-quality evidence. PEER has achieved international recognition for its innovative work and has received national awards for continuous medical education and research publications. Dr. Korownyk completed a BSc with Honours and earned her MD from the University of Alberta in 2003. She completed her Family Medicine residency in 2005. In 2023 she was awarded the Reg L. Perkin Award as one of Canada’s Top Family Physicians of the Year. She has published over 100 research articles with over 4000 citations and is deeply committed to research that tackles practical questions in primary care.

Sume Ndumbe-Eyoh is the Executive Director of the Black Health Education Collaborative (BHEC) and an Assistant Professor in the Clinical Public Health Division at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. She is a catalytic leader who mobilizes knowledge and activates networks to advance policy and practice on social and economic issues that impact health and wellbeing. Sume spent a decade with the National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health, where she provided leadership to public health practice on health equity, the social determinants of health including racism, in partnership with institutions across Canada. She has served in an advisory capacity for working groups and committees led by numerous national health organizations including the Public Health Agency of Canada, Canadian Institutes for Health Information and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Sume provides strategic consultations to organizations as principal of Another World Lab. She holds a Master of Health Sciences in Health Promotion and Global Health from the University of Toronto. Hailing from Cameroon, she is grateful to live, work and play in Turtle Island and is committed to  working towards decolonial futures.

Dr. Norris has worked with evidence synthesis and guideline development in clinical medicine and public health for over 25 years. She was Secretary of the World Health Organization (WHO) Guidelines Review Committee (Geneva, 2012-2020), where she was responsible for quality assurance of WHO’s guidelines globally, and for training and methods development. She was the primary author of the WHO handbook for guideline development (2014) and is Editor and primary author of the 3rd edition (2025).  She developed a toolkit for producing rapid guidelines in emergencies, which WHO used in the COVID-19 pandemic. She has been participating in GRADE Working Groups since 2001. Dr. Norris received her MD and MSc in Experimental Surgery from the University of Alberta, and MPH from the University of Washington. She was board certified in both general surgery and family medicine and practiced clinical medicine for 10 years. At the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), she supported development of diabetes guidelines (1999-2004). At Oregon Health & Science University, Dr. Norris led projects for the US Preventive Services Task Force, National Institutes of Health (NIH) and physician professional organizations, and was funded to study conflict of interest, selective outcome reporting, and bias in non-randomized studies. She is currently an independent consultant, providing guidance to WHO, CDC, and other institutions.

Dr. Gina Ogilvie is a Physician, Professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Faculty of Medicine’s School of Population and Public Health and a Canada Research Chair in the Global Control of HPV-related diseases and prevention. She is also the Associate Director of the Women’s Health Research Institute. Dr. Ogilvie is currently the principal investigator on over 10 million dollars in research grants. She received her MD from McMaster University and completed a specialty in Family Medicine and a fellowship in Population Health and Primary Care. She received her Master of Science (MSc) in Clinical Epidemiology at UBC, and her Doctorate in Public Health from the University of North Carolina. She is a member of the College of Family Physicians of Canada. She has provided advice to national and global institutions on STI, HIV and HPV vaccine and cervical cancer policy development and programming. Dr. Ogilvie is the recipient of many honours, including being a member of both the Royal Society of Canada (2024) and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (2022). She has received the UBC Killam Research Prize (2021); Provincial Health Officer’s Award for Excellence in Public health (2015); and Researcher of the Year from the College of Family Physicians of Canada (2014).

Dr. Nancy Santesso is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact at McMaster University and the Deputy Director of Cochrane Canada. She is also a Registered Dietitian and a member of the GRADE Working Group. Dr. Santesso acts as a consultant to national and international organisations, such as the Public Health Agency of Canada, the World Health Organization, and the European Commission, to provide guidance about how to conduct systematic reviews and develop guidelines. She has chaired, co-chaired or acted as a guideline methodologist in multiple guideline groups. She conducts research in this area and trains organisations in these methods. She has a special interest in how to communicate evidence and recommendations to the public.

Linda Wilhelm is the President of The Canadian Arthritis Patient Alliance and has been living with Rheumatoid Arthritis for 40 years. She has been actively sharing her lived experience with researchers, patient communities and government to help improve the healthcare system for 25 years. Linda has participated in a number of expert advisory committees for Health Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and in her home province of New Brunswick, most recently being a member of The Canadian Pain Taskforce. She currently sits on The NB College of Pharmacists as a community/patient representative.

Dr. René Wittmer is a family physician and clinical associate professor at the Université de Montréal. He practices at the university-affiliated primary care clinic GMF-U des Faubourgs, where he also serves as site teaching director. He is Chair of Choosing Wisely Québec and an affiliated researcher with the Canadian Medication Appropriateness and Deprescribing Network. Passionate about evidence-based medicine and science communication, Dr. Wittmer is actively engaged in public outreach. He co-hosted three seasons of C’est une question de santé on Savoir Média and currently hosts Dis-moi docteur, a podcast produced by Radio-Canada. He also contributes as a health columnist for L’Actualité magazine. His work bridges clinical practice, medical education, and public engagement, with a focus on reducing low-value care and promoting high-quality, patient-centered practices.

Dr. Brent Young is Anishinaabe and a member of Sandy Bay First Nation. His mother is a Sixties Scoop Survivor, and his grandmother was a survivor of Sandy Bay Indian Residential School. He was born and raised in Unama’ki. He is a family physician at Sipekne’katik Health Centre, academic director for Indigenous health at Dalhousie Medical School, and founding clinical lead of Wije’winen Health Centre. He played a key role in supporting the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre in establishing this multidisciplinary primary care service for the urban Indigenous community of Halifax in 2022. Through his leadership, Dalhousie Medical School has seen a substantial increase in the number of Indigenous medical students being admitted through a new Indigenous Admissions Pathway. This pathway is poised to become a key driver of the Indigenous physician workforce in the region and across Canada. He has also contributed to several national efforts to advance Indigenous health, notably as co-chair of the Anti-Racism Work Group with the National Consortium of Indigenous Medical Education and as a member of the Indigenous Health Committee with the Canadian College of Family Physicians. His primary area of interest is dismantling anti-Indigenous racism in healthcare systems using strengths-based frameworks.

Dr. Young is a comprehensive community family physician working in Collingwood Ontario, whose practice incorporates hospitalist, palliative, low risk obstetrics and teaching. She is an Associate Clinical Professor of Family Medicine at McMaster University. She has been practicing since 1992, working in Northern Ontario and in the developing world before starting her practice in Collingwood in 1999. Dr. Young has worked as a part time physician advisor for the College of Family Physicians of Canada in the Program and Practice Support Division since November 2021. Among other roles, she works on evidence reviews and clinical practice guidelines as part of the PEER team and is the liaison with Choosing Wisely Canada. Dr. Young has held leadership positions in her local community health team and hospital  and was President of the Ontario College of Family Physicians from 2018-2020.