Humanity in Healthcare

Healthcare professionals sharing lived experiences through story-telling and conversations

The HHC Series is a multi-disciplinary forum for practicing healthcare professionals to share lived experiences through story-telling and facilitated discussion. A diverse group of speakers will be invited to discuss frontline personal stories of triumph, struggle, reflection, sorrow, and joy with the participating audience as a means to create a community of shared vulnerability and connectivity. The series is intended to be inclusive of all practicing healthcare professionals and learners along the training continuum and will actively seek out participation from hospital, community, and regional partners.

Our mission:

Doctor as Person: Practicing Medicine After Losing my Child to Cancer

Dr. Damon Dagnone

Finding Solutions Together after Spinal Cord Injury: A patient & physician's lived experience

Dr. Susan Moffatt and Dr. Hugh Wiley

Navigating detours in career and life

Dean Jane Philpott

Chronic pain care at the edges of practice: Finding a unique NP role

Dr. Rosemary Wilson

The Coroner and Opioid Epidemic: Speaking for the dead to protect the living

Dr. Kieran Moore

Can Indigenous physicians work in their own community?

Dr. Ojistoh Horn

No one size fits all: Helping clients live the life they choose

Terry Landry

A Conversation with Dr. Jillian Horton…'We Are All Perfectly Fine'

Dr. Jillian Horton

Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

Valerie Cooper

Partnering with Patients: Is there really any other way?

Anne O'Riordan and Debbie Docherty

Leading Through Change

Dr. Erna Snelgrove-Clarke

Reflections and Lessons from the Margins

Dr. Oyedeji (Deji) Ayonrinde

The Privilege of Caring & Learning from Others - My Career Journey

Dr. Karen M. Smith

Involuntarily in Costume: Stigma in Healthcare

Ian Clark

Transformative Learning: Healthful Relationships Between Academics & Students

Dr. Maria Mackay

Travelling Backward to Go Forward

Tina Carson

Privilege and its Linkages with Humanity in Healthcare

Dr. Stephanie Nixon

Going with the flow: adapting to what's needed

Shalisa Barton

Dr. Damon Dagnone

Associate Professsor (Dept of Emergency Medicine), Trauma Team & Race Team Leader (KHSC), CBME Nerd; Happy Dad, Lucky Husband, Fitness Nut, Teacher, Author, and Imperfect Human.

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Dr. Sue Moffatt

Respirologist, educator, former intensivist; grateful for my beloved family and fascinating career.

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Dr. Hugh Wiley

Proud dad, dedicated husband, talented veterinarian, outdoor enthusiast & spinal cord injury patient.

Hugh Wiley was born Nov 22nd 1960 in Toronto. In 1979 he went to the University of Guelph to study Veterinary Medicine. He started working at St. Lawrence Veterinary clinic in 1986, became partner in 1991 and moved up to the sister clinic, Kingston Veterinary Clinic the same year. On November 3rd 2000, Hugh suffered a catastrophic fall in Westport Ontario which rendered him a C5/C6 quadriplegic. He resumed work at the Kingston Vet Clinic in September of 2002 and continued working there until March of 2020. He's been married for 27 years to Kelly Pope Wiley. Together they have two children, Alexandra Mary who is 23 and Jack Murray who is 19. As an avid outdoorsman he spends a lot of my spare time on Wolfe Island enjoying the abundant wildlife and beauty of the Thousand Islands. As a lifelong sport enthusiast he's been lucky to be involved with his children's recreational sport activities, and prior to the pandemic thoroughly enjoyed watching live sporting events.

Dean Jane Philpott

Jane Philpott is the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Queen's University and the CEO of the Southeastern Ontario Academic Medical Organization (SEAMO).

She is a medical doctor and former Member of Parliament. Prior to politics, Jane was a family doctor for 30 years and spent the first decade of her career in Niger, West Africa.

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Dr. Rosemary Wilson

Associate Director, Graduate Nursing and Health Quality Programs, Associate Professor (SON & DAPM), Nurse practitioner, Chronic Pain Care – KHSC-HDH Site; Mom of Boys, Grateful Spouse, Crazy Sailor, Home Renovator.

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Dr. Kieran Moore

Medical Officer of Health, Program Director, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Queen’s University
Professor, Department of Emergency and Family Medicine, Queen’s University

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Dr. Ojistoh Horn

Ojistoh Kahnawahere Horn is a Haudenosaunee family physician whose mother is from Kahnawake and father is from Akwesasne.

Providing full spectrum care to her people has been rewarding, challenging, and very thought provoking. She also supervises and teaches students and family medicine residents from Queens, McGill and the University of Ottawa’s medical schools. Her wide interests include environmental determinants of health and holistic approaches to providing primary care to indigenous communities.

Terry Landry

Terry Landry is an occupational therapist and the Regional Director of Community Adult Mental Health at Providence Care. A student in the Doctor of Science in Rehabilitation and Health Leadership program, dedicated coach of many sports and an expert at embarrassing his children in public.

Dr. Jillian Horton

Physician, Author, Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine and Director at the Alan Klass Medical Humanities Program at the Max Rady College of Medicine in Winnipeg, Manitoba

Valerie Cooper

Hospice Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner, MN, NP-Adult
Mom of two sassy girls and a snarky cat, Hockey Wife, Soprano and Fitness Enthusiast

Anne O'Riordan

Recovering academic! A healthcare provider/educator who transitioned to patient partner upon retirement.

I strive to foster care and caring in our healthcare system through my volunteer activities, but in the evenings knitting takes over!

Debbie Docherty

I am grateful for learning experiences as both a health care provider (Paediatric Social Worker) and a consumer of health care (living with Multiple Sclerosis). I am now loving retirement, volunteering and chasing grandchildren.

Dr. Erna Snelgrove-Clarke

Nurse, health educator and a proud Newfoundlander;

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Erna strongly believes in advocating for collaborative relationships and opportunities at all levels of work, interprofessional health education, clinical practice, and research; the pillars of her leadership. She is committed to all things person-centered, from health care to dancing up a storm.

Dr. Oyedeji (Deji) Ayonrinde

Associate Professor (Dept. of Psychiatry) and part-time street psychiatrist. History nerd and global culture kid with intercontinental identities. Black birder and nature photographer striving to decode the rhythm of ancestral drumbeats.

Dr. Karen M. Smith

Professor (Dept of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation), grateful Doctor, Mother and Grandmother, absolutely must love dogs, love/hate relationship with technology, Star Trek fan (the original series but maybe a bit of Picard as well!)

As healthcare providers, we all have stories that we feel have helped shape our career. I want to share some of my stories with you, those that I feel have made me a better teacher, better clinician, better researcher, better collaborator. I'd like to help you reflect on your own career and look at what your stories will be.

Ian Clark

Past President of Kingston Coalition Against Poverty, has organized many fundraisers to support local charities such as Martha’s Table, Kingston Street Mission, Partners in Mission Food Bank, Lunch By George and the AMS Food Bank.

Ian is a self-proclaimed Anti-Poverty Activist, Addiction Worker, Former Poverty Experiencer, Adventures in OCD and PTSD, Eternally Hopeful Out of Spite, Has Imposter Syndrome About Everything Except Imposter Syndrome Itself, Perpetually Uncertain About How to Adequately Describe Self.

Dr. Maria Mackay

Dr. Maria Mackay is a registered nurse and midwife with 36 years of experience and currently holds the role of Senior Lecturer / Associate Head of School Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the School of Nursing, University of Wollongong, Australia.

Maria's research interests are focused on embedding Indigenous knowledges in curriculum and exploring the creation of person-centred and culturally safe cultures, emphasising the need to prepare the future nursing workforce for the reality of clinical practice.

Healthcare education programs need to build programs that are not just focused on developing acute care skills in persons working in health, they must prepare students emotionally for the reality of entering practice. Healthful relationships between students and academics are underpinned by a sense of belonging to self and enabling personhood. Join Dr. Maria Mackay for a thoughtful discussion on how to craft these relationships to enable transformative learning.

Tina Carson

Tina Carson, PSW, Providence Care Hospital - Oasis Program Coordinator. People pleaser who is still learning to say no!
“Meema” to 5 grandkids, Wife of 43 years to a good man, and a proud Mom of three Queen's Graduates.

Dr. Stephanie Nixon

Stephanie Nixon, PhD, is Vice Dean (Health Sciences) and Director (School of Rehabilitation Therapy) at Queen’s University.

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Prior to joining Queen’s in July 2022, Stephanie spent 15 years as a professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at the University of Toronto. She completed her PhD in Public Health and Bioethics in 2006 at the University of Toronto, and a post-doc at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa in 2007. Stephanie was director of the International Centre for Disability and Rehabilitation from 2012-2021. Stephanie is a straight, white, middle class, able-bodied, cisgender, settler woman who tries to understand the pervasive effects of privilege. Stephanie developed the Coin Model of Privilege and Critical Allyship as a way to translate core ideas about anti-oppression to people in positions of unearned advantage.

The session opens with music by Jeremy Dutcher, called 'Oqiton'.

Shalisa Barton

A 2021 graduate of Queen's University, Bachelor of Nursing Science Program, Shalisa began her nursing career as a Registered Nurse amidst the COVID 19 Pandemic, in Moose Factory, Ontario. Over the last year and a half, she has begun working in the emergency department and recently accepted a role as the Charge Nurse of the Inpatient Department.

Contact Us

Dr. Damon Dagnone, Associate Professsor damon.dagnone@queensu.ca

Dr. Catherine Donnelly, Director, Health Services and Policy Research Institute catherine.donnelly@queensu.ca

Dr. Eleftherios (Terry) Soleas, Director, Continuing Professional Development eleftherios.soleas@queensu.ca

Jennifer Complin, Program Assistant jennifer.complin@queensu.ca