Program Committee
Angela Towle (Chair)
Angela is Co-Director Patient & Community Partnership for Education in the Office of UBC Health; Associate Professor Emerita in the Department of Medicine; and a Scholar in the Centre for Health Education Scholarship at the University of British Columbia. Angela chaired the conference committee for the previous two ‘Where’s the Patient’s Voice?’ conferences.
Lynn Ashdown
Lynn is a patient partner who was close to finishing her residency in family medicine when she began, and continues to navigate, a complex journey as a patient. She has a Master’s degree in medical education, with a focus on patient partnership. She’s involved in curriculum reform, focusing on patient partnerships in medical education as well as improving disability education within medicine.
Matthijs Bosveld
Matthijs is an MD and PhD-candidate at Maastricht University, The Netherlands, at the Care and Public Health Research Institute, Department of Family Medicine and the School of Health Professions. His research focuses on collaboration with patients in both education and care. He is co-founder of the Patient as a Person Foundation.
Carolyn Canfield
Carolyn is a citizen-patient and adjunct professor in the University of British Columbia’s Department of Family Practice, and advisor to the Innovation Support Unit. She works to advance patient and community participation in health professions education, services improvement, policy, research and governance. Her university roles include teaching, medical school admissions, curriculum development, and interprofessional training. Her ongoing projects with provincial, national and international teams, span all aspects of healthcare.
Alina Dhanji
Alina is a second-year student in the Doctor of Pharmacy program at the University of British Columbia (UBC). She is currently a Research and Development Assistant with Patient and Community Partnership for Education in the Office of UBC Health. Through this role, Alina is involved in developing educational models that encourage opportunities for students in health professional programs to learn from patients and caregivers with lived experiences.
Martha E. “Meg” Gaines
Emerita. Former Distinguished Clinical Professor, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs & Experiential Learning, and Founder and Director of the interdisciplinary Center for Patient Partnerships at the University of Wisconsin Law School. She is in her second term on the Board of Directors of the Association of American Medical Colleges and served on the previous ‘Where’s the Patient’s Voice?’ Conference Committee. Retired and thirty years past a metastatic ovarian cancer diagnosis, Meg enjoys working only on projects of the heart.
Bill Godolphin
Co-Director of the Patient & Community Partnership for Education (PCPE) in the Office of UBC Health and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine at the University of British Columbia. As a researcher his projects and publications have ranged from breast cancer prognostic factors to laboratory automation and medical education. In Pathology, Bill teaches critical thinking, literature searching and assessment and instructional skills. Bill dreams that through our efforts in PCPE informed and shared decision-making between patients/clients and health professionals may, one day, become a common reality.
Mathieu Jackson
Expert in patient partnership and advocacy, Mathieu has severe hemophilia B. He is lead of the School of Partnership at the Center of Excellence on Partnerships with Patients and the Public at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Center. He is on the directors’ committees of Laboratorio Educare, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy, and of continuous and professional training at the Federation of Generalist Physicians of Quebec. He sits on boards of the World Federation of Hemophilia and the Canadian Hemophilia Society’s Quebec Chapter. Mathieu is a fellow of the 2017-2018 International AFFIRM Program on patient advocacy and leadership.
Cathy Kline
Cathy is Assistant Director Patient & Community Engagement, UBC Health at the University of British Columbia. She has dedicated the past 20 years to building a hub for patient and community engagement at UBC and conducts research to advance patient involvement in the academy. Cathy was a member of the conference committee for the past two ‘Where’s the Patient’s Voice?’ conferences which have provided leadership in the development of an international and interdisciplinary movement to embed the patient’s voice in health professional education. She is also a member of the Governing Council for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Beth Lown
Beth is Chief Medical Officer at The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, and affiliated faculty, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA and Mount Auburn Hospital, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Valdemar Ferreira Viana Neto
Valdemar is a psychoanalyst with an MA from the University of Westminster, UK, and currently a CNPQ (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) research scholar in the Interprofessional Health Mentors Program as a Psychology student at Bahiana School of Medicine and Public Health in Brazil. He founded the Ausculta(dor) “listener” project to support LGBTQIA+ students in 2024.
Christie Newton
Christie is the Associate Vice President, Health in the Office of the Vice-President, Health, University of British Columbia; an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Practice, UBC Faculty of Medicine; and a practicing family physician at the UBC Health Teaching Clinic.
Jools E. Symons
Jools is the Patient and Public Involvement Manager and Communication Skills Lead at the Leeds Institute of Medical Education (LIME), UK. She has built a community of over 200 active members of the Patient | Carer Community at LIME and has formed and leads the Lived Experience Network (LEN), an international community for Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in education and healthcare. A former carer, she has worked in higher education for over 23 years as an advocate for the full involvement of patients and carers in all aspects of curriculum, and mentors PPI Teams across the UK and beyond.
Jill Thistlethwaite
Jill has worked in health professional education and family medicine in the UK and Australia. Jill is a senior associate editor of the Journal of Interprofessional Care and was editor-in-chief of The Clinical Teacher from 2014-2020. She has honorary academic positions at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the University of Western Sydney, Australia. Her interests are interprofessional education and collaborative practice, patient partnership and shared decision-making, and professionalism.