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Ross Upshur elected Hastings Fellow

January 31/2019

Head shot photo of Professor Ross Upshur

Ross Upshur

Professor Ross Upshur — internationally recognized primary care, public health and bioethics expert —was elected a Hastings Center Fellow on January 30, 2019.

As the only Canadian of 18 new Hastings Center Fellows, Upshur joins a group of outstanding academics whose work has informed scholarship and public understanding of complex ethical issues in health, health care, life sciences research and the environment.

“I’m honoured to join the esteemed group of Hasting Fellows who are tackling some of the most pressing ethical and social issues in health care,” said Upshur, Clinical Public Health Division Head and Scientific Director at Bridgepoint Active Health Care and Sinai Health System.

“Ethical issues arise in all dimensions of public health and health care and are becoming increasingly complex, requiring transdisciplinary approaches for solutions. The work being done at the DLSPH and Sinai Health System is poised to provide practitioners and policy makers the approaches they need to address the most pressing issues facing Canada’s healthcare system and other health systems globally,” said Upshur, who is also associate director of the Lunenfeld Tanenbaum Research Institute.

The Hastings Center is a nonpartisan, nonprofit bioethics research institution founded in 1969 that aims to address fundamental ethical and social issues in health care, science and technology.

An enthusiastic and decorated scholar, administrator and physician, Upshur’s research focuses on the intersection of primary care and public health and he works closely with leadership across Toronto’s academic health ecosystem and beyond to address the increasing complexity of patient and population needs in primary care.

He has served on many national and international advisory bodies and ethics committees for the Public Health Agency of Canada, the World Health Organization, and Doctors without Borders. He is a member of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the College of Family Physicians of Canada. He was also recently awarded the Dalla Lana Chair in Clinical Public Health.