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Final Program


Preliminary Program

Colleen O'Connell, MD (she/her/hers)

Professor and Medical Director
Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine and Stan Cassidy Centre for Rehabilitation

Colleen O’Connell, MD, FRCPC

A Canadian east-coaster, and never far from water, Colleen is a Professor of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation in Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine, and Medical Director of New Brunswick’s Stan Cassidy Centre for Rehabilitation. Believing in the strength of collaboration, or perhaps having difficulty saying no, she is a member of many networks: Canadian ALS Research Network, Canadian SCI Alliance, Neuromuscular Disease for Canada Network, Atlantic Mobility Action Project. Research interests and outputs are broad, reflecting a tendency to being an early adopter – or FOMO - including applied technologies for mobility impairment and function. Regarding best practice recommendations as essential to quality care and capacity building, she contributes as a member of the PVA SCI Guidelines Consortium, Heart and Stroke’s Best Practices Advisory Committee, the ISCoS SCI Toolkit, ALS Canada Best Practice Recommendations Working Group and Canadian National SCI Strategy.

International health work predates medical training. With husband Jeff and a team of rehabilitation volunteers she founded Team Canada Healing Hands in 2002, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing rehabilitation capacity in lower resourced countries. She has had opportunity to work in areas of rehabilitation care, training, and disaster response in many countries, including Haiti, Nepal and Ukraine. She is chair of the Emergencies subcommittee of the International Spinal Cord Society and serves on the Spinal Cord Injury technical working group of the WHO Emergency Medical Teams for SCI and the ISCoS-WHO SCI Toolkit for national health systems. Surrounded by action-oriented humanitarians and advocates, she is honored to serve on the steering committee of the WHO hosted World Rehabilitation Alliance.

In another life, she would have been an adventure explorer (if that is such a thing). Even so, every day is still an adventure.

Disclosure information not submitted.

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