SPECIALTY AND TITLE

Neurology

HOSPITAL AFFILIATIONS

St. Michael’s Hospital

UNIVERSITY AFFILIATIONS

Assistant Professor

AREA OF RESEARCH

My research and educational interests are in the area of quality improvement and patient safety, and specifically medication safety and standardization of practice for neuromuscular patients treated with immunosuppressive medications. I am interested in the way that we create and use guidelines in practice, especially when evidence is lacking. A more recent academic and research focus is in the area of virtual care innovation and optimization among medical specialists, especially as a way to improve access to specialist assessments and testing (e.g. electrophysiological testing).

MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE AND/OR HEALTH CARE DELIVER

My interest in medication safety led to the publication of the largest studies on the risk of infections and fractures in a relatively common inflammatory neuromuscular disease (myasthenia gravis). Along with 2 other colleagues that have an interest in Quality Improvement, we co-founded NQIL (the Neurology Quality and Innovation Lab) to foster city-wide quality and safety projects within the Division of Neurology. An early successful collaboration was the development and publication of the “Virtual Neurologic Examination”, with accompanying videos, as a way to improve clinician proficiency with providing virtual neurological assessments both during and after the pandemic.