Scientific Advisory Committee Medical Devices Used in Cardiovascular Systems - Membership List and Biographies

Membership List and Biographies

Core Members

• John Ducas(Chair), MD, FRCPC
• Renzo Cecere, MD, FRCSC, FACS
• Eric Cohen, MD, FRCPC
• Christopher Feindel, MD, FRCSC, FACS, MSc
• Marino Labinaz, MD, FRCPC, FACC
• Alan Menkis, DDS, MD, FRCSC
• Joaquim Miró, MD, FRCPC
• L. Brent Mitchell, MD, FRCPC, FACC
• Barry Rubin, MD
• John G. Webb, MD
• Raymond Yee, MD, FRCPC, FHRS

Ad Hoc Members

• Bob Kiaii, MD, FRCSC, FACS
• Stephen Lownie, MD, FRCSC, FAANS
• CS Simpson, MD, FRCPC, FACC, FHRS, FCCS, FCAHS

Related Information: The Summary of Expertise, Experience, Affiliations and Interests for the Scientific Advisory Committee on Medical Devices used in Cardiovascular System accompanies the member biographies. It summarizes the information provided by each member regarding their expertise/experience, and their affiliations and interests, which is required as part of the nominations process.

Core Members

John Ducas (Chair), MD, FRCPC

Interventional Cardiologist, St-Boniface General Hospital
Associate Professor, University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, Manitoba

John Ducas completed medical school, training in Internal Medicine and Cardiology at McGill University in Montreal. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Manitoba and Director of Catherization Laboratories for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. Previously, he was Head of Cardiology (1998-2002) at the University of Manitoba. He has been a member of various national committees for the Canadian Cardiovascular Society and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and provincial committees for the Manitoba Medical Association (now Doctors Manitoba). He is active in clinical research of Acute Coronary Syndromes, Coronary Atherosclerosis and Interventional Cardiology. He has published over 60 papers in peer reviewed journals.

Renzo Cecere, MD, FRCSC, FACS

McGill University
Associate Professor of Surgery
Associate Member, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Chief, Division of Cardiac Surgery
Surgical Director, Heart Failure and Heart Transplantation Program
Director, Mechanical Cardiac Assist Program
Montreal, Quebec

Renzo Cecere is a cardiothoracic surgeon at the Montreal Children's Hospital and The Royal Victoria hospitals in Montreal, Quebec. As well, he is an Associate Professor at McGill University in Montreal. He is currently the Surgical Director of the Heart Failure and Heart Transplant Program of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), the Director of the Mechanical Circulatory Support Program as well as the Interim Director of Cardiac Surgery at McGill University. Dr. Cecere completed training in surgery and cardiothoracic surgery at McGill University. He then pursued fellowship training in heart failure, transplantation and mechanical circulatory support at Loma Linda University and Stanford University. Dr. Cecere is active in clinical research and has brought multiple new technologies to the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). His research interests include new technologies and treatments for the management of heart failure. Currently, he is developing the MUHC Biodesign and Cardiovascular Innovation Centre, which groups experts and initiatives in the field of biomedical research and innovation. Dr. Cecere is also Associate Member of the Centre for Intelligent Machines of McGill University's Faculty of Engineering, and holds several patents in biomedical devices.

Eric Cohen, MD, FRCPC

Cardiologist, Deputy Head, Schulich Cardiology Division, Sunnybrook Health Science Centre
Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario

Dr. Eric Cohen received his medical degree from the University of Calgary and undertook further training at McGill University. After a short period of general practice in Northern Ontario, he trained in general and interventional cardiology at the University of Toronto. Currently, he is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, and a cardiologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, where his clinical work is focused on trans-catheter approaches to mitral valve disease. After serving as the Director of Interventional Cardiology and Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at Sunnybrook for 14 years, he transitioned to Deputy Head of the Division of Cardiology in 2010. He has been actively involved with the Cardiac Care Network of Ontario (CCN) for several years. The Network monitors access and provides planning advice on advanced cardiac services to the Ministry of Health in Ontario. Dr. Cohen previously held the position of Medical Officer, and is currently a Board Member and Chair of the Network's Information Strategy Management Council. From 2013 to 2015 he was President of the Canadian Association for Interventional Cardiology, an organization dedicated to the advancement of the specialty in Canada and beyond. Academically, Dr. Cohen remains actively involved in teaching and clinical research related to interventional cardiology, and has authored or co-authored more than 95 peer reviewed publications. In recent years, he has served on safety monitoring committees for several large international clinical trials.

Christopher Feindel, MD, FRCSC, FACS, MSc

Antonio & Helga DeGasperis Chair in Clinical Outcomes Research in Cardiac Surgery
Professor of Surgery, University of Toronto
University Health Network
Toronto, Ontario

Christopher Feindel is Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto and the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre at the University Health Network (UHN) where he has been an academic cardiac surgeon for over 30 years. He began his career as an electrical engineer at the National Research Council Canada. He returned to school to obtain his medical degree from McGill in 1976 and obtained his General Surgery Fellowship from the University of Western Ontario in 1981. He completed his Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery Fellowship at the University of Toronto in 1984 after which he joined Dr. Tirone David as a cardiac surgeon at the Toronto Western Hospital. He has achieved national and international recognition as an expert in cardiac surgery, particularly in open heart and catheter based valve surgery. In 2001, he obtained his Masters of Science in Healthcare Management from Harvard University and in 2015 he completed the Directors Education Program through the Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD) at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. Dr. Feindel is past President of the Canadian Society of Cardiac Surgeons and is a former board member of Cardiac Care Network of Ontario. He chairs the Ontario Cardiac Surgery Quality Collaborative, a provincial cardiac surgery group dedicated to quality care in cardiac surgery based on a common outcomes database and reporting system. He continues to actively pursue his interest in clinical outcomes and is the holder of the Antonia and Helga DeGasperis Chair in Clinical Trials and Outcomes Research in Cardiac Surgery at the University Health Network. He currently sits on the board of Peterborough Regional Health Centre where he is a member of the board Quality Committee.

Marino Labinaz, MD, FRCPC, FACC

Director, Coronary Care Unit, Ottawa Heart Institute
Professor, Division of Cardiology, University of Ottawa
Ottawa, Ontario

Marino Labinaz did his undergraduate and medical training at Queens University followed by a three-year residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Western Ontario. He received his fellowship in Internal Medicine in 1991 and his fellowship in Cardiology in 1992. Following his training in Cardiology, he completed a two-year interventional fellowship at Duke University Medical Centre after which he returned to the Heart Institute as a full time member of the Division of Cardiology in 1994. He is currently a Full Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Ottawa. Clinically, his areas of expertise are in interventional cardiology, acute coronary syndromes, structural cardiac interventions and acute cardiac care. He served as the Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory and the Interventional Cardiology Program at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. He is currently the Director of Coronary Unit. He has published over 300 research publications, presentations, book chapters and reviews. He serves on the editorial board of Current Cardiology Reviews and does reviews for a number of journals including Circulation, the American Heart Journal and the Canadian Journal of Cardiology.

Alan Menkis, DDS, MD, FRCSC

Medical Director, Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, Cardiac Sciences Program,
Professor Cardiac Surgery, University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, Manitoba

Alan Menkis began his career as a Dental Officer with the Department of National Health and Welfare at the Inuvik General Hospital, Inuvik, Northwest Territories from 1972 to 1974. He then obtained his medical degree from McMaster University in Hamilton and did postgraduate training in cardiovascular research, internal medicine, and surgery in Hamilton, and Memorial University in Newfoundland. He received general and cardiovascular and thoracic surgical training at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute achieving FRCPS(C) in both specialties.. He has received advanced post fellowship training in mechanical circulatory assist devices in Ottawa and at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. He has published extensively and has been the recipient of numerous research grants. In September 2004, he was appointed the Medical Director of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA) Cardiac Sciences Program and the Head of the Section of Cardiac Surgery, University of Manitoba. He is Past President of the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation and Canadian Society of Transplantation, the Canadian Society of Transplantation and the International Society of Minimally Invasive Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery He previously sat on the Clinical Trials Committee of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, was the former Chairman of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Western Ontario and the London Health Sciences Centre.

Joaquim Miró, MD, FRCPC

Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Université de Montréal
Chief, Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory, Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte-Justine
Montreal, Quebec

Joaquim Miró completed his medical studies, his general pediatric training and his residency in pediatric cardiology at the University of Montreal between 1979 and 1990. In 1991, he completed a fellowship in the Intensive Care Unit of the Centre Chirurgical Marie-Lannelongue and Hôpital Robert Debré in Paris, France. Thereafter, Dr. Miró completed a fellowship in interventional catheterization at Harvard University at the Boston Children's Hospital between 1992 and 1993. Since 1993, he has practiced pediatric cardiology at Hôpital Sainte-Justine in Montreal, Quebec. He is also Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Montreal and Chief of the cardiac catheterization laboratory. Dr. Miró developed an expertise acknowledged internationally in the field of congenital interventional catheterization and, over the last 20 years has been invited to present at numerous conferences and give practical demonstrations in more than twenty countries including USA, China, Spain, France, Colombia, Thailand and Morocco. Dr Miró is the founder of the organization Sainte-Justine au Coeur du Monde, which conducts humanitarian missions to treat children born with cardiac malformations and to transfer expertise to local teams.

L. Brent Mitchell, MD, FRCPC, FACC

Professor of Medicine, Department of Cardiac Sciences, Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta, Alberta Health Services and University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta

L. Brent Mitchell obtained his B.Sc. (Hon) in Biochemistry (1972) and his M.D. (1975) from the University of Calgary. After a Fellowship in Clinical Cardiology at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, he undertook a Fellowship in Academic Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology at Stanford University Medical Centre, California. He joined the staff of the University of Calgary in 1982. He is currently a Professor of Medicine in the Department of Cardiac Sciences at the University of Calgary / Calgary Zone of Alberta Health Services and is a member of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta. He has extensive experience with both the research and the clinical application of devices used in the cardiovascular system particularly as applied to clinical cardiac rhythm disturbances.

Barry Rubin, MD

Program Medical Director, Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, University Health Network
Member, Division of Vascular Surgery, University Health Network
Toronto, Ontario

Dr. Rubin completed an undergraduate degree in physics and physiology and medical school at McGill University. After a PhD in Experimental Medicine, he finished his General and Vascular Surgery training in Toronto. He is certified by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in both of these specialties, and received the Bernard Langer Award as the outstanding graduate of the Surgical Scientist Program at the University of Toronto in 1993. Dr. Rubin joined the surgical faculty at University Health Network (UHN) in 1995, and currently holds the rank of Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto. Barry Rubin was Head of the Division of Vascular Surgery at UHN from 2003 to 2011, and has been the Medical Director of the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre at UHN since 2010. Dr. Rubin's basic science research laboratory has been continuously funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for 17 years. His basic science work, widely published in high impact journals, focuses on the way the heart responds to injury and the regulation of the immune response to infection. He is the only Canadian recipient of a career development award from the Foundation for Accelerated Vascular Research, San Francisco. Dr. Rubin was Chair of the Ontario Expert Panel on appropriate utilization of diagnostic and imaging studies, and was co-Chair of the Ontario Multiple Sclerosis Expert Advisory Group, which published guidelines for follow-up care and treatment for Ontarians with Multiple Sclerosis who had vein dilation therapy. He has been Chair and CEO of the Mount Sinai Hospital UHN Academic Medical Organization since 2003, and has been unanimously re-elected to this position 3 times by his peers. Dr. Rubin leads the group that represents 6,000 academic physicians in Ontario in discussions with the Ministry of Health and Ontario Medical Association that relate to the $250,000,000 per year Phase III Alternate Funding Plan.

John G. Webb, MD

Director of cardiac catheterization and interventional cardiology, St. Paul's Hospital
Professor, University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia

John Webb is Director of the cardiac catheterization labs and interventional cardiology at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, the McLeod professor of valvular heart disease intervention at the University of British Columbia and Provincial Medical Director of structural heart therapy for Cardiac Services of British Columbia.   His research focus is the transcatheter management of valvular heart disease and the development of new interventional therapeutic devices, procedures and programs. Dr. Webb's publications in peer reviewed journals exceed 450 and he is a recent recipient of the UBC Killam Research Prize in Science, an honorary doctorate from Simon Fraser University, and an Innovation and Achievement Award from Life Sciences BC

Raymond Yee, MD, FRCPC, FHRS

Professor - Department of Medicine
Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry
The University of Western Ontario

Dr. Yee is the Interim Chair of the Division of Cardiology at the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Western University and City-Wide Interim Chief of Cardiology, London Teaching Hospitals, London, Ontario. He is currently the Ramsay Gunton Professor of Medicine at Western. He is a medical graduate of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and a Fellow of the Heart Rhythm Society. His clinical expertise is in management of cardiac arrhythmias. Having published over 300 articles in peer-reviewed journals and books, Dr. Yee's expertise is well sought after within the field of cardiac electrophysiology. His research has been published in scientific journals such as Circulation, Canadian Journal of Cardiology, American Journal of Cardiology, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology, Pacing and Clinical Electrophysiology and the Journal of Heart Rhythm Management. Dr. Yee is affiliated with several professional associations including the Royal College of Physicians of Canada, the Canadian Cardiovascular Society the Heart Rhythm Society and the Canadian Heart Rhythm Society. He is an exam writing committee member for the International Board of Heart Rhythm Examiners, former Chair and current member of the Specialist Advisory Committee for Medical Devices Used in the Cardiovascular System for the Medical Device Bureau (Health Canada) and Chair of the International Standards Organization Technical Committee/ Subcommittee 6 (Active Implants).

Ad Hoc Members

Bob Kiaii, MD, FRCSC, FACS

Ray & Margaret Elliott Chair in Surgical Innovation
Professor, Western University
Chief / Chair of Cardiac Surgery
Director, Minimally Invasive and Robotic Surgery
Division of Cardiac Surgery, London, Ontario

Bob Kiaii obtained his medical degree and training from the University of Western Ontario. He is a Professor in the Department of Surgery at the Western University. He is a cardiac surgeon, and chair of the division of Cardiac Surgery, and Director of the Minimally Invasive Robotic Cardiac Surgery Program in the Division of Cardiac Surgery at the London Health Sciences Centre University Hospital. He is also one of the founding members of Canadian Surgical Advanced Technology and Robotics (CSTAR) of the Lawson Health Research Institute. He is one of the most experienced minimally invasive robotic cardiac surgeons nationally and internationally.

Stephen Lownie, MD, FRCSC, FAANS

Professor, Departments of Clinical Neurological Sciences,
Medical Imaging, and Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery,
Western University/London Health Sciences Centre
London, Ontario

Stephen Lownie obtained his medical degree at Dalhousie University followed by neurosurgical residency training at Western University. Subsequent education included a two-year fellowship in diagnostic and interventional Neuroradiology at UWO followed by a one-year neurointerventional fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a Neurosurgeon and Neurointerventionalist with a primary interest in vascular diseases of the brain and spine. He is currently Professor in the Departments of Clinical Neurological Sciences, Medical Imaging and Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at Western University and London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC), London, Ontario. He served as Chief of the Division of Neurosurgery from 2000 to 2005 and also served as Co-Chair / Co-Chief of the Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences from 2000 to 2010. He has been a staff neurosurgeon and neurointerventionalist at LHSC since 1992.

CS Simpson, MD, FRCPC, FACC, FHRS, FCCS, FCAHS

Vice-Dean (Clinical), School of Medicine
Professor, Division of Cardiology (Heart Rhythm Service)
Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario
2014-15 President, Canadian Medical Association (CMA)

Dr. Simpson obtained his MD in 1992 from Dalhousie University. He subsequently completed internal medicine and cardiology training at Queen's University in Kingston and then a Heart and Stroke Foundation Clinical and Research Fellowship in Cardiac Electrophysiology at the University of Western Ontario, under the supervision of Dr. George Klein. After returning to Kingston in 1999, he founded the Heart Rhythm Program at Kingston General Hospital, establishing catheter ablation and implantable defibrillator programs. From 2006-2016 he served as Professor and Head of Cardiology at Queen's University, as well as Medical Director of the Cardiac Programs at Kingston General Hospital/Hotel Dieu Hospital. Currently, he is Vice-Dean (Clinical) and Medical Director of the Southeastern Ontario Academic Medical Organization (SEAMO) in the Queen's School of Medicine. He sits on numerous editorial boards and advisory committees and has chaired or been a member of several national and international consensus conferences. He is an author or co-author of over 350 peer-reviewed papers and abstracts.