Me2 Majumdar Research and Quality Improvement Collaborative Day

Professor Marc Humbert
M.D., Ph.D.

Past President of the European Respiratory Society (ERS), Professor Marc Humbert is Dean of the Université Paris- Saclay Faculty of Medicine. He is the Director of the Inserm Research Unit 999 and of the Department of Respiratory and Intensive Care Medicine, French Pulmonary Hypertension Centre, Hôpital Bicêtre (Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Paris). Marc Humbert was the Chief Editor of the European Respiratory Journal and he is currently Section Editor in charge of Pulmonary Vascular Medicine. He is a Foundation Fellow of the ERS.

He has received several distinctions including the Cournand Lecture Award (ERS), the Descartes-Huygens Award (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences), the Rare Disease Award (Fondation de France), the Award for Lifetime Achievement in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (ERS), the Excellence Award (Fondation du Souffle), and the Council on Cardiopulmonary, Critical Care, Perioperative and Resuscitation Distinguished Achievement Award (American Heart Association). Since 2017, Marc Humbert is the coordinator and vice-coordinator of the French and European Reference Networks for rare and low prevalence respiratory diseases (RespiFIL and ERN-LUNG). Clarivate Analytics lists Marc Humbert as one of the world's highly cited researchers in the field of Clinical Medicine. 

Shobhan Thakore

Associate Medical Director for Quality Management, NHS Tayside, Clinical Lead for the Scottish Quality and Safety Fellowship Programme, NHS for Education Scotland

Shobhan Thakore has been an Emergency Medicine Consultant in NHS Tayside since 2003. He spent 8 years as Clinical Lead of the service and is now Associate Medical Director for Quality Management. In this role he helps to redesign and improve services by ensuring improvement science expertise supports operational teams. Part of this role includes leading Realistic Medicine in Tayside in collaboration with a multi-professional clinical team and innovative methods from the design community in Dundee. 

He is also Clinical Lead for the Scottish Quality & Safety Fellowship programme which trains clinicians from Scotland, Northern Ireland, Denmark and Norway to become improvement experts. The programme delivers training in technical improvement skills but also leadership skills that help participants understand the importance of team engagement and the psychology of change. 

Anyone wishing to contact Shobhan for further information can do so via email shobhan.thakore2@nhs.scot

Jason Weatherald
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine Division of Pulmonary Medicine Lung Transplant & Pulmonary Hypertension, Alberta Health Services

Jason Weatherald is a pulmonologist and Associate Professor at the University of Alberta where he works in the Lung Transplant and Pulmonary Hypertension programs. He completed his undergraduate studies at McGill University, followed by an MD and Internal Medicine residency training at the University of Alberta. He completed his Respiratory Medicine fellowship training at the University of Calgary. He then received a European Respiratory Society long-term research fellowship to study pulmonary vascular diseases under the supervision of Prof. Marc Humbert and Prof Olivier Sitbon in Paris, France from 2016-2017. He completed a Masters of Science in Clinical Trials from the University of London - London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2019.

His research involves risk assessment methods in pulmonary arterial hypertension and patient-oriented research, with a current interest in novel clinical trial design. Recently, he has also co-led multicentre clinical trials related to interventions for COVID-19. He has received research funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, The Lung Association, and the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada. Since 2016, he has authored over 90 publications and has an h-index of 27. He is an Associate Editor at the European Respiratory Journal and at the European Respiratory Review.

Mahesh Kate
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Neurology, Alberta Health Services

Mahesh Kate is an Associate Professor with the division of Neurology. His research focuses on secondary stroke prevention with sustainable interventions and improving stroke patients' outcomes by understanding pathophysiological mechanisms.

He co-designed the first study for the Indian Stroke Clinical Trial Network (INSTRuCT). SPRINT INDIA (Secondary Prevention by structured Semi-Interactive Stroke Prevention Package in India) study enrolled 4298 patients in 31 centres. This study was recently published in Lancet Global Health and highlighted the need for education to improve compliance. Currently, with help of the SMART network he is working on the precision and comfortable delivery of remote ischemic conditioning (RIC). In a randomized clinical trial with sham controls, the group is testing the feasibility of a novel tissue reflectance spectroscopy device to understand dermis-epidermis oxygen and hemoglobin concentration during the RIC therapy. Second, he is probing post-endovascular therapy recovery with help of neurophysiological techniques including electroencephalography and functional near-infrared spectroscopy. This observational study will allow insights into novel treatment target “neurovascular coupling” in the post-stroke period. He is developing a Young Stroke Prevention Clinic at Kaye Edmonton Clinic for vascular risk reduction and etiological assessment. This clinic will characterize stroke risk differences with respect to age and sex. 

Marlene Dytoc 
Clinical Professor, Department of Medicine Division of Dermatology, Alberta Health Services

Marlene Dytoc is a Clinical Professor of Medicine with the Division of Dermatology at the University of Alberta. She specializes in general dermatology as well as occupational and hand eczema, vulvar dermatology and psychodermatology, in collaborative or multidisciplinary clinics with the Departments of Preventive Medicine, Gynecology and Psychiatry. She serves as the deputy Edmonton Zone chief for Dermatology, undergraduate medical director for Dermatology, Dermatology lead for the Edmonton Zone Council for Quality Improvement and Dermatology lead for Connect Care for the province of Alberta.

Marlene Dytoc obtained an MD and PhD in Microbiology from the University of Toronto. She completed residency training in Dermatology at the University of Alberta and specialty training in vulvar dermatology in the US and Canada. Dr. Dytoc has held a clinical appointment in the Department of Medicine’s Division of Dermatology since 2002.

Winnie Sia
Professor, Department of Medicine Division of General Internal Medicine, Alberta Health Services

Winnie Sia is a Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of Alberta. She received her medical degree and residency training in Internal Medicine at University of Alberta. She then completed a 2-year fellowship in Obstetric Medicine, or Medical Complications in Pregnancy, at Brown University Rhode Island, USA.

Currently, she is the Chief of department of Medicine at the Royal Alexandra Hospital and is the Director of Obstetric Medicine. Her clinical and research interests include preeclampsia, thromboembolism in pregnancy and longterm cardiovascular and vascular health in women with a history of hypertensive disorder of pregnancy. Her quality improvement journey began with SCIC and has focused on reducing unnecessary investigations in preeclampsia, reducing testings/nursing checks in Alternate-Level-of-Care (ALC) patients, developing alternative accommodation for stable obstetric inpatients, and Choosing Wisely Canada themes such as reducing pre-operative investigations/consultations and deprescribing.