PACE Network

Dr. Afif, MD, FRCPC, completed his medical school (2003), internal medicine and gastroenterology training at McGill University. He went on to complete an additional advanced fellowship in IBD at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. He returned to McGill to complete a M. Sc. (Epidemiology) and has been on staff at the McGill University Health Center since 2009.

He is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Department of Gastroenterology. He is the McGill IBD Center Research Director and the Montreal General Hospital GI Site Director. His research interests focus on the safety and efficacy of biologic medications in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). He has a particular interest in the use of therapeutic drug monitoring of biologic medications to optimize the treatment of IBD.

Dr. Barwick, PhD, CPsych, is a Senior Scientist in the Child Evaluative Sciences Program of the SickKids’ Research Institute and the Centre for Global Child Health. She leads professional and resource development in dissemination and implementation science and practice (knowledge translation) within the KT Program of the SickKids’ Learning Institute. At the University of Toronto, she is Professor in the Department of Psychiatry (Faculty of Medicine), and in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (Behavioural Health Sciences and Institute for Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation). She is a Visiting Scholar at the University of Huddersfield in the UK.  An internationally recognized expert in dissemination and implementation science, her program of health services research spans many areas of health to improve the implementation of evidence into practice and to broaden the reach of evidence to support decision making, policy, knowledge, awareness, health and well-being.
 

Dr. Benchimol, MD PhD FRCPC NASPGHAN-F, is a pediatric gastroenterologist at the SickKids Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Centre and Professor in the Department of Paediatrics and the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. He has an active practice caring for children and youth with IBD. He is also a Senior Scientist at the SickKids Research Institute, and Senior Core Scientist at ICES. He is the lead investigator for the PACE project focused on transitioning patients with pediatric-onset IBD from pediatric to adult care.

Dr. Benchimol is also an epidemiologist, and chairs the Canadian Gastro-Intestinal Epidemiology Consortium (CanGIEC), which conducts epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, outcomes, and health services research using health administrative data from multiple provinces. He is also interested in improving research methods using routinely-collected health data. He co-chairs the RECORD Steering Committee, an international group which has created reporting guidelines for observational studies using routine-collected health data for research.

Dr. Bernstein, MD, FRCPC, a graduate from the University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine, and the UCLA Division of Gastroenterology Fellowship Training Program is the Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Bingham Chair in Gastroenterology Research;  Head - Section of Gastroenterology, and Director, Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinical and Research Centre at the University of Manitoba.  His research interests are primarily related to utilizing epidemiological trends to pursue IBD etiology; defining IBD comorbidities; health services research; and exploring predictors of clinical outcomes.  

He has published over 566 peer reviewed articles, 26 book chapters, edited 7 Yearbooks of IBD, and is a coeditor of the leading clinical pathology textbook in gastrointestinal disease. In 2008, he was elected into the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, and in 2012 he was elected into the Royal Society of Canada -Life Sciences Division of the Academy of Science. In 2014 he was named a Distinguished Professor at the University of Manitoba.

Dr. Bitton, MD, FRCPC, is Professor of Medicine and the Director of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, McGill University and McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). Previously he was the McGill Gastroenterology Residency Program Director. His research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) includes identifying factors that predict disease course and recurrence and defining the epidemiology of IBD in Quebec. He is the Quebec clinical lead of the Quebec IBD Genetics consortium (QIGC) part of the University of Montreal Genetic Research Centre (GRC) which is one of the 6 GRCs making up the NIH-NIDDK IBD Genetics Consortium which has identified IBD susceptibility genes. He has championed the creation of the MUHC’s IBD center, a multidisciplinary platform for healthcare delivery, research and education. He spearheaded the development of a tool to be used for ongoing assessment and improvement of care of IBD patients in Canada.

Dr. Bollegala, MD, MSc, FRCPC, is a staff gastroenterologist at Women’s College Hospital, Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, University of Toronto, and Fellow in the Institute of Clinical Evaluative Sciences. In 2016, she completed an IBD fellowship at Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, an MSc in Clinical Epidemiology and Healthcare Research at the University of Toronto.
 
Dr. Bollegala has an interest in the area of quality improvement and vulnerable populations in IBD. She conducts research related to IBD with a particular focus on pediatric to adult transition of care. She serves as the quality Improvement advisor to the colonoscopy - quality management partnership, CPSO. She co-chairs the Canadian IBD Transition Network. She leads the quality improvement primer initiative with the quality affairs board of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology and is on the Board of Directors for the Ontario Association of Gastroenterology.

Dr. Nancy Fu, MD, MHSc, FRCP(C), is currently a Clinical Assistant professor in the Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia. Her research interests include IBD adolescent transition (strategies, resources and outcomes), infections in IBD patients (detection, complications and prevention), and program implementation and utilization. She co-chairs the Canadian IBD Transition nEtwork (CITE) aiming to improve care of young adults with IBD.

Dr. Graff, PhD, CPsych, is Professor and Head, Clinical Health Psychology Department with the Max Rady College of Medicine, University of Manitoba, and Provincial Specialty Lead – Clinical Health Psychology, Shared Health Manitoba.  She trained as a clinician-scientist, obtaining her Master’s degree at the University of Saskatchewan and her doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology at the University of Manitoba, following completion of her clinical residency. 

Dr. Graff’s clinical and academic work is integrated in the area of behavioral medicine with acute and chronic disease, focused on gastrointestinal disorders.  She developed and continues to run the GI Psychology clinic, based at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre. Her research has centered on psychological processes and interventions in gastrointestinal and other immune-mediated inflammatory diseases.  Dr Graff has led the UofM IBD Clinical and Research Centre team’s internationally recognized work examining the role of psychological factors such as stress, depression, anxiety, and resilience in disease course and management of inflammatory bowel disease. 

Dr. Kroeker, MD, MSc, FRCPC, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Alberta. After receiving her BSc from the University of Calgary, she worked in a medical research laboratory for 2 years. She received her medical degree from the University of Calgary in 2004. Following the completion of her internal medicine residency at the University of British Columbia and gastroenterology residency at the University of Alberta, she completed an Advanced Clinical & Research Fellowship in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. She received her Masters of Experimental Medicine at the University of Alberta in 2012.

Dr. Kroeker joined the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Alberta in 2010. Her research interests include understanding the impact of a pediatric diagnosis of IBD on the psychosocial impact of IBD, adherence to therapy and therapeutic monitoring in IBD, and clinical care pathways for standardizing IBD care. 

Dr. Marshall, MD, MSc., FRCPC, AGAF, is a Professor of Medicine and Director of the Division of Gastroenterology at McMaster University, as well as a consultant gastroenterologist at Hamilton Health Sciences in Hamilton Ontario. He completed his B.A. and M.D. at Queen’s University, and then undertook his residency training and M.Sc. in Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics at McMaster University. He is a Full Member of the Farncombe Family Digestive Health Research Institute. His publications include over 200 academic papers and book chapters and over 250 abstracts. Dr. Marshall is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology (JCAG). He is also an Associate Editor of ACP Journal Club and Evidence-Based Medicine and an Editorial Board Member for the Journal of Crohn’s and Colitis.

Dr. Narula, MD, FRCPC, MPH, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, and the director of the IBD clinic at McMaster University and staff gastroenterologist in Hamilton Health Sciences. After attending medical school at the University of Alberta, he completed internal medicine residency and gastroenterology fellowship training at McMaster University.  He completed the Present-Levison advanced IBD fellowship in Mount Sinai Medical Centre in New York, NY, in 2015.  He obtained a Masters of Public Health at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in 2018. He has over 70 peer-reviewed publications in the field of IBD and authored 4 textbook chapters. 

Dr. Nguyen, MD, PhD, FRCPC, is a Professor of Medicine and Clinician Scientist based at Mount Sinai Hospital (Toronto) whose clinical and research focus is healthcare delivery in inflammatory bowel disease, especially among vulnerable populations such as the elderly, transitioning pediatric IBD patients and pregnant women with IBD. He completed his medical training, fellowship, and PhD in clinical investigation at Johns Hopkins. He has been the lead author on several international IBD clinical practice guidelines and is the national lead for the PACE program. He also serves as Chair of the CINERGI group (Canadian IBD Network for Research and Growth in Quality Improvement) and Vice-President of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology’s Quality Affairs Committee.

Dr. Panaccione, MD, FRCPC, is a Professor of Medicine and the Director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Unit at the University of Calgary. He is the 2020 Crohn's Colitis Canada Outstanding Physician of the Year and has been recently recognized as a 2020 Clarivate Research Scholar for being cited in the top 1% of researchers cited in the world.He is the author of many peer-reviewed articles (~300) including publications in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, JAMA, Nature, and Annals of Internal Medicine.  His special interest lies in the fields of advanced therapies, biological therapy, and delivery of care. He is a recognized authority on IBD therapeutics and has co-authored numerous guidelines for the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology. He actively participates in clinical trials of new therapeutic agents in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.  He reviews for prestigious journals including NEJM, Lancet, Gastroenterology and Gut.

 

Dr. Cynthia Seow, MBBS (Hons), MSc, FRACP, is an Associate Professor in the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary. She completed medical school, internal medicine and gastroenterology training in Australia, then undertook a 2-year clinical research fellowship in IBD at Mount Sinai Hospital concurrent with a Masters in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Toronto. Dr. Seow’s primary research interest is in Materno Fetal outcomes in IBD and she leads the University of Calgary IBD pregnancy clinic. Dr. Seow is the shared first co-author of the ‘Toronto Consensus Statements for the Management of IBD in Pregnancy’ published in Gastroenterology in 2016. She has numerous publications in the area of IBD and pregnancy, and enjoys collaborating with other investigators on the topic. Other major research interests include the pharmacokinetics of biologic therapies in IBD.