Health Program Management Interest Area.

Join the Health Program Management Interest Area in the Global Health concentration for a talk with Robert Cushman. Cushman’s experience includes a broad range of health care administration, public health, and clinical activities. He served as medical officer of health in Ottawa, Canada, from 1996 to 2005, where he successfully introduced a number of controversial initiatives, including groundbreaking municipal smoke-free legislation and harm reduction programs for addictions. His talk titled “From Science to Public Policy” will feature case studies based on his personal experience, the successes, the failures, and the lessons learned from front line efforts to effect change. Cushman was the senior medical advisor at Health Canada and the director general of the Biologics and Genetic Therapies Directorate from 2012 to 2015. He served as the inaugural CEO of the Champlain Local Health Integration Network from 2005 to 2011, and prior to that as Ottawa’s medical officer of health. Cushman has worked as a primary care physician in a variety of health-care settings, including the emergency room of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, the Somerset West Community Health Centre in the inner city of Ottawa, and along the James and Hudson Bay coasts of northern Quebec. Early in his career, he worked at a large African mission hospital for three years. He received his medical degree and a master’s in epidemiology from McMaster University. He also earned an MBA from the University of Ottawa.