About GHEM

At GHEM (Global Health Emergency Medicine), we are dedicated to improving access to emergency health care in low-resource settings. We develop and implement education and research initiatives, which are informed by clinical practice. Our activities translate into academic outputs and aim to inform health policy development, benefitting those in Canada and abroad.

The GHEM Model

Clinical Practice

Our GHEM team are experts in their field. We practice in a range of settings including large urban teaching hospitals and trauma centres, as well as rural health centres in war-torn and epidemic-ravaged communities. Our patient experiences have shaped our skills as physicians, teachers and researchers.

Education & Research

Based at the University of Toronto, we embrace our role as both teachers and learners in all aspects of our work. GHEM projects include innovative approaches to education and locally-driven operational research, which improves the health care workforce and system. Project teams are multi-disciplinary, international and collaborative

Outputs

GHEM activities are funnelled into academic outputs that benefit local and international partners. By providing Toronto-based clinicians with international opportunities and presenting our work at conferences and meetings, we are helping to build a new generation of EM practitioners working to improve global health. We are also creating open-access resources that connects our international partners to high quality and relevant information, enabling them to become expert practitioners and advocates in the field of emergency medicine.

Our Team

GHEM Executive Committee

Jennifer Hulme

Health Equity Committee Co-Chair

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Jennifer Hulme (MDCM, CCFP(EM), MPH) is an attending emergency physician at the University Health Network (UHN) and Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto. She specializes in health systems and operations research, bringing proven interventions and technologies to scale and strengthening public-sector health systems to improve health equity. The first ten years of her career were spent working to improve quality and access to primary care in low and middle-income settings in areas of reproductive, maternal and child health. She transitioned to action-oriented work on women’s health among underserved populations in Canada. Now, Dr. Hulme leads a research program aimed at addressing health disparities. She is currently the PI on an Institute of Clinical Evaluative Sciences study of patients with frequent emergency department visits for alcohol intoxication. She is also co-investigator on an operations research study of the scale-up of misoprostol for the prevention of postpartum hemorrhage in Mozambique. She co-chairs the Health Equity Committee of the Global Health Emergency Medicine group, which aims to bring together health professionals seeking solutions to health inequities through advocacy, research, education and clinical practice, in order to improve outcomes for marginalized communities.

Megan Landes

GHEM Director & TAAAC-EM Co-Director

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Megan Landes (MD, MSc, CCFP(EM)) is an attending staff doctor in the Emergency Department of theUniversity Health Network (UHN), the University of Toronto’s largest downtown teaching hospital and during the past five years has worked clinically in Lesotho, Malawi and Ethiopia in both emergency medicine and HIV services. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine. She specializes in operational research around the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, and is a Research Scientist with Dignitas International in Malawi. Additionally, her research interests include the delivery of emergency medicine services in low-resource settings and she is a founding member of the Global Health Emergency Medicine (GHEM) group at the University of Toronto. She is the co-director of the Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration in Emergency Medicine (TAAAC-EM) which is working with Addis Ababa University to deliver Ethiopia’s first emergency medicine residency program.

James Maskalyk

TAAAC-EM Co-Director

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James Maskalyk (MD, FRCP(EM)) practices emergency medicine at St. Michael’s hospital, where he received 2012’s “inner-city health, social responsibility” prize. He is an award winning teacher at the University of Toronto and with Dr. Megan Landes directs, TAAAC-EM, a project that works with Ethiopian partners at Addis Ababa University to train East Africa’s first emergency physicians. He has been active in global health work since 2001, when he did his first field work as a physician in Cambodia. He is a member of Médecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), an organization for which he has worked as both a journalist and a physician, most recently, in Dadaab Kenya, home to the world’s largest refugee camp. He was MSF’s first official blogger, and from this, he published a bestselling book about his experience as a field physician entitled, “Six Months in Sudan”. He is a founding member of GHEM, and it’s current director. His academic interests include medicine in low-resource settings, health and conflict, publication ethics, and humanitarian action.

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Lisa Puchalski Ritchie

GHEM & TAAAC-EM Research Director

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Lisa Puchalski Ritchie (MD, FRCPC(EM), DTM&H, PhD) is an emergency physician practicing at University Health Network, a Scientist at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute in the Knowledge Translation Program, Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto, and Assistant Professor (status only), Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, at the University of Toronto. She is a founding member of the Global Health Emergency Medicine group (GHEM) at the University of Toronto, and the Research Director for GHEM and TAAAC-EM. She is a clinical epidemiologist with a research focus on the use of knowledge translation strategies to improve health care delivery and outcomes in resource limited health care settings.

Edward Xie

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Edward Xie, MD MSc CCFP(EM) DTM&H is an emergency physician at University Health Network and a Clinician Investigator at the Department of Family & Community Medicine of the University of Toronto. He completed an MSc in Health Policy at the London School of Economics and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Dr. Xie has worked abroad for Médecins Sans Frontières and Global Health Emergency Medicine, and in Canada with the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and other evidence-based organizations. He has research interests in global health, equity, social and environmental determinants of health, and economics, and welcomes cross-sectoral collaboration.

GHEM Staff

Elayna Fremes

Program Manager

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Elayna Fremes (MPH) serves as the Program Manager for the Global Health in Emergency Medicine (GHEM) group and the Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration in Emergency Medicine (TAAAC-EM). She works with all of the GHEM Executive and General Members to ensure the smooth and efficient operation of all GHEM projects and committees. Prior to working with GHEM, Elayna spent 5 years at the Global Health Division in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. In this role she led and managed a number of different global health education programs for various different audiences. She completed her undergraduate degree in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto and completed her Masters of Public Health (MPH) at the University of Waterloo.

Alexandra McKnight

Program Coordinator

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Alexandra McKnight (MSc) serves as the Program Coordinator for the Global Health in Emergency Medicine (GHEM) group and the Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration in Emergency Medicine (TAAAC-EM). She works with Elayna Fremes and all of the GHEM Executive and General Members managing trip logistics for TAAAC-EM and spearheading GHEM’s communications strategy. Prior to working with GHEM, Alexandra gained logistics and project management experience through working with a Toronto-based non-profit organization. She completed her undergraduate degree in Sociology and Legal Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University and completed her Masters of Global Health (MSc) at McMaster University.