MD Physician Council

Dr. Hortense Nsoh Tabien is medical health officer for the Saskatchewan Health Authority, serving in the areas of Saskatoon and Moose Jaw.

She is a member of many organizations, including the Public Health Physicians of Canada and the Canadian Public Health Association. Dr. Tabien’s professional interests focus on immigrant and refugee health, family health, women’s health and physician health.

She earned an MD at the University of Milan, as well as a PhD in anatomy and cell biology and a master’s degree in public health at the University of Saskatchewan. Dr. Tabien’s residency and fellowship training were in public health and preventive medicine.

Dr. Talia Varley is a Primary Care physician with subspecialty work in Addiction Medicine and Chronic Pain. She is a community-based clinician practicing across urban inner-city and rural settings at the front lines of the opioid crisis. Dr. Varley’s clinical interest areas include women’s health, healthcare systems, and management as well as women and leadership development.

Dr. Varley is the Physician Lead of Advisory Services at Cleveland Clinic Canada, where her responsibilities include developing annual strategic and financial planning, setting of corporate policy, talent management, risk management, as well as monitoring corporate performance against business plans and key performance indicators. In addition, she is an executive board member of the Women’s Professional Staff Association at Cleveland Clinic.

As a clinician leader, Dr. Varley has a unique management background that combines the rigor of medicine with the corporate training excellence of management consulting. She has deep experience with McKinsey & Company across a broad spectrum of international corporate mandates including due diligence, corporate finance, operations, human resources and talent, enterprise strategy and organizational agility, as well as digital transformation.

Dr. Varley earned a master’s degree in Public Health at Harvard University, an MD and Certification of the College of Family Physicians at McMaster University and a B.Sc. at Western University. She gained work experience at the Harvard Business School, the University of Toronto and SickKids Hospital, and is also an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Toronto’s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation.

Dr. Franco Rizzuti is a Public Health and Preventive Medicine Specialist, as well as a Medical Officer of Health with Alberta Health Services (AHS). As a native Calgarian, he is a proud University of Calgary alumnus where he earned a B.Sc. in Cellular, Molecular and Microbial Biology, as well as an MD. Additionally, Dr. Rizzuti completed his graduate studies in physician leadership and post-graduate training at the University of Calgary.

Dr. Rizzuti’s interest areas within public health include emergency and disaster planning, environmental public health and health system design. He was involved in elements of the COVID-19 pandemic response and was a co-creator of the Alberta COVID-19 Exposure Response Team, AHS’ rapidly mobilized contact tracing program. Dr. Rizzuti is a passionate educator, teaching across the pre-clerkship, clerkship and residency curriculums and is part of a small team overseeing the new MD curriculum at the University of Calgary.

In addition to his clinical work, Dr. Rizzuti has extensive experience as a medical leader, having served as President of the Canadian Federation of Medical Students, the Professional Association of Resident Physicians of Alberta, the Graduate Student Association of the University of Calgary and Chair of the Alberta Graduate Council. He has also served on the boards of the Canadian Medical Association, the Alberta Medical Association (AMA), the Canadian Resident Matching Services, Resident Doctors of Canada and the Board of Governors of the University of Calgary. Currently, he serves as President of the Canadian Association of Physicians with Disabilities and is an executive member of the AMA’s Public Health and Preventive Medicine section.

Dr. Kawan Rakhra is associate professor in the Department of Radiology at the University of Ottawa, cross-appointed to the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery, and head of the Musculoskeletal Imaging Section in the Department of Diagnostic Radiology at The Ottawa Hospital.

His clinical interests include MRI, sports medicine, advanced cartilage imaging and innovative 3D modelling techniques. As a clinical investigator with the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Dr. Rakhra is actively involved in imaging based, multidisciplinary basic science and clinical research projects in collaboration with researchers from the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery, the University of Ottawa and Carleton University. He also has a special interest in metrics-based evaluation systems in the academic setting.

Dr. Rakhra earned an MD at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He completed his residency in Radiology at the University of Alberta and his fellowship in Musculoskeletal Imaging at the University of Toronto.

Long passionate about physician advocacy, Dr. Darcy Johnson has served North East Winnipeg as a family physician since 1983. He continues to have privileges at Concordia Hospital and to provide care at Stony Mountain Institution.

Dr. Johnson is currently secretary of the Doctors Manitoba family practice section, and he serves as executive committee member and audit committee chair for the Canadian Medical Protective Association (CMPA). Since 2015, he has been CMPA councillor for Manitoba/Nunavut.

Dr. Johnson was president of the Manitoba College of Family Physicians (2003–2004) and president of Doctors Manitoba (2007–2008). He has also served on the boards of the College of Family Physicians of Canada and Canadian Medical Association, across many committees and working groups. He was a member of the Manitoba Medical Review Committee from 1997 to 2002, and is past chair of Concordia Hospital’s Department of Family Medicine.

In 2008 Dr. Johnson received a CFPC award of excellence, and in 2009 he was named Manitoba's Family Physician of the Year, as well as one of Canada’s Family Physicians of the Year. He graduated from the University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine in 1981.

Dr. Robert Tremblay practices family medicine in Chisasibi, a remote Cree community in northern Quebec, where he is Chief of Medicine and is serving as Clinical Representative on the Board of Directors for the Cree Board of Health.

As a faculty lecturer for the Department of Family Medicine at McGill University and for the Canadian Medical Association Joule’s Practice Management Curriculum, Dr. Tremblay is passionate about medical education, with particular interest in the transition to practice for family medicine residents.

Dr. Tremblay earned an MD at McGill University in 2011 and completed his residency program at McGill in 2013.

After finishing her academic career in 2015, Dr. Erika Mehl took up a comprehensive practice in the northern community of La Loche, Sask., for a year and a half before travelling to several First Nations communities in northern British Columbia. She settled in Langley as a hospitalist, where she is actively involved in the site, and in administrative roles and projects.

Dr. Mehl graduated from the UBC Faculty of Medicine in 2013. She completed a family practice residency in Moncton through Dalhousie University in 2015.

Dr. Frank Papanikolaou is a Urologist at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and at Trillium Health Centre in Mississauga – where he also acts as Service Medical Director of Operations and Patient Flow as well as division Head of Pediatric Surgery.

Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto, Dr. Papanikolaou is passionate about medical education – launching Trillium’s urologic fellowship program and leading its postgraduate residency program.

For the Ontario Medical Association, Dr. Papanikolaou has served as both Chair and Tariff Chair of the Section of Urology. He received his MD from the University of Ottawa and completed his urology residency and fellowship training at the University of Toronto. A life-long learner, he has completed programs at the Rotman School of Management and Schulich School of Business.

Pediatrician Dr. Stephanie Perry practises part time at Miramichi Regional Hospital, part of the Horizon Health Network.

Dr. Perry is assistant professor of pediatrics at Dalhousie University and clinical assistant professor at Memorial University. She is involved in the clinical education of third-year medical students — via Dalhousie’s longitudinal integrated clerkship — and of pediatric PGY4s.

She earned a B.Sc. from the University of New Brunswick in 1989 and an MD at Dalhousie University in 1992. Subsequently Dr. Perry completed a one year Rotating Internship at Dalhousie followed by Pediatric residency training at Dalhousie and the IWK Health Centre.