Ross Upshur
Encyclopedia
Ross Upshur, FRCPC
Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada
The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada ' , French: Collège royal des médecins et chirurgiens du Canada, is a national, private, nonprofit organization established in 1929 by a special Act of Parliament to oversee the medical education of specialists in Canada...
, is a Canadian physician and researcher. He is the Director of the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics
University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics
The University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics, or JCB, is an academic research centre located on the downtown campus of the University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Joint Centre for Bioethics is a partnership between the University and 15 affiliated health care organizations in...
, Director of the Primary Care Research Unit at Sunnybrook Research Institute
Sunnybrook Research Institute
Sunnybrook Research Institute is the research component of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, Ontario. It is one of the largest research centres in Canada, second only to the University Health Network within the Toronto Academic Health Sciences Centre Network...
and a staff physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
at the Department of Family and Community Medicine, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, abbreviated SHSC and known simply as Sunnybrook, is an academic health sciences centre located in Toronto, Ontario....
.
Biography
He received his BABachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree (Hons.) in philosophy from the University of Winnipeg
University of Winnipeg
The University of Winnipeg is a public university in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada that offers undergraduate faculties of art, business and economics, education, science and theology as well as graduate programs. The U of W's founding colleges were Manitoba College and Wesley College, which merged...
in 1982, MA
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
degree in philosophy from Queen's University
Queen's University
Queen's University, , is a public research university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded on 16 October 1841, the university pre-dates the founding of Canada by 26 years. Queen's holds more more than of land throughout Ontario as well as Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England...
in 1983, before receiving his MD
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
degree from McMaster University
McMaster University
McMaster University is a public research university whose main campus is located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land in the residential neighbourhood of Westdale, adjacent to Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens...
in 1986. After 7 years of rural primary care practice in southern Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, he returned to university to complete an MSc in epidemiology
Epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...
and fellowship training in Community Medicine and Public Health at the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
in 1997.
He was appointed by the University of Toronto as Assistant Professor in 1998 and Associate Professor in 2004 in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, with Cross-Appointment to the Department of Public Health Sciences. Since 2000, he has been the Director of the Primary Care Research Unit at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. In 2006, he was appointed Director of the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics.
He holds other academic positions, including the Canada Research Chair in Primary Care Research, Director of the PAHO/WHO
Who
Who may refer to:* Who , an English-language pronoun* who , a Unix command* Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism- Art and entertainment :* Who? , a 1958 novel by Algis Budrys...
Collaborating Centre for Bioethics, Adjunct Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, affiliate of the Institute of the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto. He is an Associate Member of the Institute of Environment and Health and Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Geography and Earth Sciences at McMaster University.
At the University of Toronto, he has designed and taught courses in the undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate curriculum in ethics and epidemiology
Epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...
, as well as supervising doctoral and master’s candidates, in addition to serving as a clinical supervisor for the post-graduate Family Medicine
Family medicine
Family medicine is a medical specialty devoted to comprehensive health care for people of all ages. It is a division of primary care that provides continuing and comprehensive health care for the individual and family across all ages, sexes, diseases, and parts of the body...
Residency program.
He has served on advisory boards for the International Joint Commission
International Joint Commission
The International Joint Commission is an independent binational organization established by the United States and Canada under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909.The Commission has responsibilities related to the following treaties and agreements:...
, Doctors Without Borders, and Scidev.net and consulted with the World Health Organization
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...
.
Research
He has published over 100 articles in scientific journals such as LancetThe Lancet
The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is one of the world's best known, oldest, and most respected general medical journals...
, British Medical Journal
British Medical Journal
BMJ is a partially open-access peer-reviewed medical journal. Originally called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988. The journal is published by the BMJ Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association...
, Canadian Medical Association Journal
Canadian Medical Association Journal
The Canadian Medical Association Journal is a general medical journal that is published biweekly by the Canadian Medical Association . It covers research and ideas aimed at improving health for people in Canada and globally. CMAJ publishes original clinical research, analyses and reviews, news,...
, among others.
His research interests include: the concept of evidence in health care, medical epistemology, clinical reasoning, public health ethics, ethics and health information, empirical approaches in bioethics, primary care research methods, time series
Time series
In statistics, signal processing, econometrics and mathematical finance, a time series is a sequence of data points, measured typically at successive times spaced at uniform time intervals. Examples of time series are the daily closing value of the Dow Jones index or the annual flow volume of the...
applications in health services research
Health services research
Health services research is a multidisciplinary scientific field that examines how people get access to health care practitioners and health care services, how much care costs, and what happens to patients as a result of this care...
, communicable disease and environmental epidemiology
Environmental epidemiology
Environmental epidemiology is the branch of epidemiology concerned with discovery of the environmental exposures that contribute to or protect against injuries, illnesses, developmental conditions, disabilities, and deaths; and identification of public health and health care actions to avoid,...
. He is currently the principal investigator on the internationally renowned Canadian Program of Research on Ethics in a Pandemic (CanPREP), funded by CIHR, which conducts research on infectious disease ethics.
A list of Ross Upshur's publications is available on PubMed
PubMed
PubMed is a free database accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health maintains the database as part of the Entrez information retrieval system...
, click here.