Investigative Team

Project Co-Chairs:

Professor Sue Baptiste is past Assistant Dean of Occupational Therapy at McMaster University, and currently a professor in the School of Rehabilitation Science within the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) at McMaster University. Sue was a founding member of the FHS Interprofessional Initiative; is working with Dr. Cathy Risdon in developing the Professional Competency stream of the new undergraduate medical curriculum at McMaster; participated as a team member in an immersion experience at the School of Medicine at Indiana focused on culture change within interprofessional educational environments; consults internationally on problem-based learning and curriculum development to a wide range of health professions (e.g. medicine, nursing, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, physiotherapy, dentistry). Her publications include: a mentoring and supervision workbook for health care professionals; a self-directed journey of learning about problem-based learning for students in any discipline; as co-editor of a book published in 2005 with Dr. Patty Solomon addressing innovations in rehabilitation science education.
Sue has assumed many leadership roles such as Chief of Therapeutics within a large, academic health sciences centre, in which she was responsible to and for twenty three health care disciplines, establishing collaborative programs and approaches to the challenges of professional practice in a program management structure.


Dr. Cathy Risdon
David Braley-Nancy Gordon Chair in Family Medicine
Professor, Department of Family Medicine
Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University

Dr. Cathy Risdon, Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine, is also holder of Canada’s first endowed Chair in Family Medicine. The David Braley and Nancy Gordon Endowed Chair was created to foster educational, research and clinical innovations to support doctor-patient and interprofessional relationships in health care. Cathy’s current work, in collaboration with Professor Sue Baptiste from the School of Rehabilitation Science, is focused on creating a competency based curriculum to teach interprofessional collaboration, self-awareness, interpersonal skills and professionalism to medical students. The Professional Competency curriculum, launched in the fall of 2005, includes faculty pairs of physicians and professionals from other clinical disciplines with an intention to actively model and teach interprofessional collaboration. Cathy is involved in developing interprofessional Family Health Teams in clinical family medicine and has worked with leaders in local hospital administrations to develop model sites for interprofessional clinical placements. She has also initiated projects to promote professional collaboration and communication between internal medicine and family medicine residents and clinicians. Cathy is a founding member of the Faculty of Health Sciences Task Force on Interprofessional Education and a co-author on a national ACMC sponsored grant to look at interprofessional collaborations within Continuing Professional Development. Cathy is currently enrolled in a Doctorate of Management in Organizational Change at the Centre for Management and Complexity at the University of Hertfordshire, UK.

Co-investigators:

Patty Solomon is a Professor and Director of Interprofessional Education in the Faculty of Health Sciences. She is interested in educational research and development and has published and consulted extensively in the areas of problem-based learning and curriculum design. She is the lead on a Health Canada IECPCP project to develop a virtual institute of interprofessional education. Dr. Solomon is also interested in rehabilitation issues related to HIV/AIDS. She has designed innovative curricula related to HIV and received CIHR funding to study participation issues in people living with HIV.

Dr. Catherine Tompkins
Associate Dean of Health Sciences (Nursing)
Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University

Catherine Tompkins is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean of the School of Nursing in the Faculty of Health Sciences. She has a clinical background in community health and has done research in the area of women with physical disabilities. Catherine also has a strong background in nursing education, having served as Chair and Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Nursing Programs for 6 years prior to assuming the role of Associate Dean (Nursing). She is interested in socialization of health professionals to their roles and interprofessional communication.

Project Manager:

Elizabeth Steggles graduated as an occupational therapist in the United Kingdom where she held management positions in a variety of organizations including a charitable trust, a manufacturer of assistive technology and an Oxford University teaching hospital. Since immigrating to Canada she has focused on clinical work including the design and implementation of a marketed service for Hamilton Health Sciences.
Elizabeth is a professional associate and graduate student of the School of Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University.  Her research activities have focused on the utility of assistive technology.

Research Consultant:

Scott is a sociologist who has been undertaking health education and health services research for over ten years in the UK.  His main research interests are exploring the processes and outcomes related to interprofessional education/practice.  Methodologically, his work focuses on ethnography, mixed methods and systematic review.  Theoretically, his work is informed by the interactionist theories developed by Erving Goffman and Anselm Strauss.  In the past five years Scott has helped secure over $2.4m in research grants in both Canada and the UK, published a number of peer-reviewed journal papers, book chapters and two books on interprofessional education/practice.  In addition, Scott works as an Associate Editor on the Journal of Interprofessional Care and holds honorary research posts at three universities (City University, University of East Anglia, London School Hygiene & Tropical Medicine).

Research Assistant: