Canuck Place Research Initiative Team

Dr. Hal Siden, MD, MHSc, FRCPC

Research Chair

Dr. Harold (Hal) Siden, MD, MHSc, FRCPC, is the Medical Director of Canuck Place Children’s Hospice in Vancouver Canada. He oversees the physician team, research, education programs and care of over 800 children with life-threatening illnesses and their families. Specializing in pediatric palliative care, Dr. Hal Siden has been the Canuck Place Medical Director since 2001 and has played a vital role in caring for children and families for the over 20 years. Leading innovative research, developing new clinical practices, educating medical students and residents while advocating for the care of terminally ill children are all part of his committed career. Hal’s work has made BC the nation’s leader in pediatric palliative care, which in turn, provides a unique model followed throughout the world. His efforts have undeniably improved the lives of many children and their families. A devoted educator in the specialty he pioneered, Hal continues his work as a compassionate and involved clinician. He is also is an Attending Physician in Pediatrics and Division Head of Palliative Medicine at BC Children’s Hospital and an Investigator in the BCCH Research Institute. He is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of British Columbia (UBC) with a joint appointment in the Inter-Departmental Division of Palliative Medicine. His clinical interests are pediatric palliative care, pediatric pain management and general & complex care pediatrics. He is Principal Investigator on several projects funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. In 2017, Dr. Hal was presented with the Dr. Parminder Singh Award of Distinction by the BC Pediatric Society for his leading work in the field of pediatrics. In 2016, Dr. Hal was presented with the BC Community Achievement Award recognizing individuals who have made a significant contribution to their community either as volunteers or in the course of their work. Early in his career, he realized he wanted to help the children he was caring for in a different way. “I was a physician caring for a lot of kids that I couldn’t cure, but I realized I could still make a difference in their lives. That was really important to me as a doctor.”

Gail Andrews, RN, MEd

Research Manager

Gail Andrews, RN, M.ed., is responsible for managing the overall direction, finances, and administration of our research. With years of experience, having in many ways grown the Siden Lab alongside Dr. Siden, she liaises with researchers, clinicians, and administrators across study sites and importantly, across all UBC departments critical to our research, from the REB to finance. She oversees budget planning, resource allocation and prepares required reports for our stakeholders. For multisite projects, she prepares and monitors sub-site contract agreements. As RM Gail has overseen every aspect of our projects, from study conception to completion. In addition, Gail works as a bedside nurse at Canuck Place and as a research nurse on many projects that involve evaluation of clinical care practices.

Anne-Mette Hermansen, MA

Research Coordinator

Anne-Mette Hermansen, MA, is responsible for the day-to-day operations of our research activities. She is involved in most projects, providing assistance at any stage of project planning and management. She also liaises with researchers outside of our team when there are requests for collaboration or consultation on projects related to our work. Anne-Mette assists in hiring and managing of students and staff, developing grant applications and study protocols, developing SOPs for individual projects, and assisting in preparation of presentations and publications.

Dr. Sharon Hou, RPsych

Project Lead

Jason Zheng, MSc

Statistician

Jason serves as the Statistician and Researcher (SR) at Canuck Place Children's Hospice (CPCH), where he leads advanced research design, statistical analysis, and the development of large datasets. Beyond number-crunching, the SR provides expertise in data acquisition, integrity, and interpretation. As part of the Research Initiative at CPCH, Jason regularly collaborates with the Siden Lab on research design, data analysis, and knowledge translation. He is also responsible for the operations of the CPCH Research Committee, liaises with external researchers, ensures ethics compliance, and communicates research updates across CPCH teams.

Colleen Pawliuk, MLIS

Librarian-Information Manager

Colleen is a key team member in supporting all the work we undertake. Library, archival, and information services has been a component of all our previous research studies and have proven to be invaluable to support our work. This work includes projects such as organizing manuscripts, citations, knowledge dissemination, large volumes of documents that are required for the project archives, and in developing future funding applications. As an embedded team member, Collen Pawliuk, MLIS, does all this work and more, playing a particularly important role during project development, when a good understanding of how research questions are situated within the existing literature is required. In addition, Colleen is a supervisor and mentor to students that undertake literature reviews or are tasked with developing and distributing our monthly citation list, Trends in Pediatric Palliative Care Research.

Patient Oriented Research strategies have become an intentional part of all our projects. In our research program families have traditionally contributed with research ideas and questions that arise from clinicians’ relationship with patients and parents; parent advisory panels have evaluated research designs and tools. In addition, we always gather feedback from study participants and adjust research processes accordingly.

Laesa Kim

Family Liaison

With the development of the CIHR Strategy for Patient Oriented Research (SPOR) we have developed a more structured approach to patient engagement. We formalized and embedded this form of knowledge exchange and consultation within our research staff group by creating the role of Family Liaison Research Assistant. In her role Laesa liaises with families across the country, often through social media. Her work has contributed to our program by boosting recruitment, informing KT products to speak more clearly to those who participate in our research and diversifying and deepening our analysis. Laesa has served as an advisor to other projects through Child-Bright. She is also independently con-ducting research from a POR perspective and is learning qualitative methodology to support her work.

Candice Barrans

Parent Partner

Candice is an embedded parent partner for the Siden Lab. In this role she organizes a monthly publication titled Trends in Pediatric Palliative Care Research (TPPCR). This requires tabulating a citation list of the most relevant recent publications in pediatric palliative care and assisting a community expert in writing a commentary that reflects on the lists publications while providing depth from their personal experience to their analysis. She also supports and mediates the quarterly Parent Journal Club which hosts a space for parents of children with medical complexity to discuss research of relevance to their experience. Candice is currently engaged in a scoping review investigating Parent/Patient Acknowledgement in research publications.