Presenter: Charles Larson

Theme: Global & Indigenous Health

Presenter: Dr. Stuart MacLeod, MD, PhD, FRCPC Vice President, Academic Liaison & Research Coordination Professor, Department of Pediatrics, University of British Columbia Child & Family Research Institute

Seminar Overview:
Please come and hear Dr. Stuart MacLeod speak about the work he is doing with the UBC based International Alliance for Better Medicines for Children. The IABMC works with the International Development Research Centre, Health Canada and a host of international partners such as the World Health Organization, UNICEF, Save the Children Fund and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Their aim is to see that children in low income countries may have adequate access in future to essential medicines to reduce under-five mortality from neonatal sepsis, malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia.

Children and youth worldwide lack access to adequately tested and validated treatments for even common diseases. In low income settings the situation is compounded by limited opportunities for knowledge transfer and by inadequate fiscal resources that limit access to treatments proven effective. The result is 8 million deaths each year that are considered to be readily preventable. A growing number of child health specialists, pharmacologists and pharmacists are working with governments, pediatric regulators and support agencies to address the therapeutic objectives outlined in Millennium Development Goals: Goal 4 - Reduce child mortality, Goal 5 - Improve maternal health, and Goal 6 - Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

Speaker Biography:
Since January 2003 Dr MacLeod has been a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of British Columbia. During the period 2003 –– January 2010 he served as director of the Child & Family Research Institute at BC Children’’s Hospital. Prior to his move to British Columbia Dr MacLeod spent 14 years at the University of Toronto (pharmacology, clinical biochemistry, pharmacy, medicine, and pediatrics) and held hospital appointments at the University Health Network and The Hospital for Sick Children. In 1987 he became Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University and in 1992, the founding director of the Father Sean O’’Sullivan Research Centre, Hamilton, a position he held until June 2002.

Dr. MacLeod’’s main research interests are pediatric clinical pharmacology, patient safety, adverse drug reactions, drug policy, and optimal drug use for children. He has parallel interests in global child health and medical education and is currently studying the use of mobile phones to improve survival for children under the age of 5 years in rural western Uganda. He is the founder of the International Alliance for Better Medicines for Children.

Title: Health hazards and industrial hygiene in the oil and gas industry

Speaker: Robert Waterhouse, BSc, CIH
Industrial Hygienist, EH&S, Canadian Division, Encana

SPPH students will celebrate the last day of classes with a potluck luncheon in the SPPH lobby. Come and join in the fun.