News Release
1999-67
April 29, 1999
Dr. R. McMurtry named to newly-created post at Health Canada
OTTAWA - Health Canada announced today that Dr. Robert McMurtry, currently Dean of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Western Ontario, has been appointed the first G.D.W. Cameron Visiting Fellow at Health Canada.
This is the first appointment of a Fellow to occupy the Cameron Visiting Chair of Health Canada. It is part of the Department's effort to enrich its scientific and policy capacity by drawing on eminent individuals in the field of health and health care.
Dr. McMurtry will have a broad mandate to advise the Minister, the Deputy Minister and the Department on a wide range of emerging health issues from a health expert's viewpoint. He will take part in developing policy and participate in senior departmental committees.
The new Chair, named after Dr. George Donald West Cameron who served as Deputy Minister of National Health between 1946 and 1965, is designed to provide Health Canada with valuable insight and advice from eminent men and women in the health field outside the Department. Those appointed to the post must be outstanding health professionals who can make a significant and lasting contribution to the development of policy and knowledge within Health Canada on a wide range of subjects. Appointments will normally be of one to two years' duration.
Dr. McMurtry graduated from the University of Toronto in 1965 and went on to specialty training in orthopaedic surgery at the same university after serving two years in Africa, mainly at a mission hospital. After further research, he began practice at Sunnybrook Medical Centre in Toronto in 1975 where he performed orthopaedic and hand surgery.
In 1988, he became Professor and Head of Surgery for the University of Calgary and Head of Surgery for Foothills Hospital. He was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Medicine -- now the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry -- at the University of Western Ontario in 1992.
He has published widely in his field and chaired an Ontario provincial committee on the role, function, and financing of academic health science centres in 1994-95. He also conducted a review of the Provincial Cancer Network in 1995.
Dr. McMurtry was named a member of the Medical Research Council in 1996 for a three-year term and is on the Interim Governing Council of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
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Media Inquiries:
Morgan Fontaine
Health Canada
(613) 957-2985
Public Inquiries
(613) 957-2991
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