Canuck Place Research Team
Advancing pediatric palliative care through research and knowledge sharing
Dr. Hal Siden
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
Research Manager
Gail is responsible for managing the overall direction, finances, and administration of our projects. With years of experience, having in many ways grown the Siden Lab alongside Hal, 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.
Anne-Mette Hermansen
Research Coordinator
Anne-Mette is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Siden Lab. She is involved in most of our projects, providing assistance at any stage of project planning and management. She also liaises with re-searchers 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.
Elisa Castro-Noriega
Statistician and Health Care Researcher
While we work with PhD level statisticians for advanced research design and methodology, day-to-day statistical analysis and developing large datasets requires a Master’s degree-trained statistician. This individual does more than process numbers, the SR also provides insight into data acquisition, integrity, and outputs. Elisa is a staff member of Canuck Place and she has already developed collaborations with the Siden Lab. At Canuck Place she is the staff member responsible for the operations of the CPCH research committee, liaises with external researchers, ensures compliance with ethics, and communicates with other CPCH teams about research.
Laesa Kim
Parent Liaison - Research Assistant
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.
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.
Edlyn Lim
Librarian-Information Manager
Library, archival, and information services has been a component of all of our previous research studies and have proven to be invaluable in organizing manuscripts, citations, and large volumes of paper and pdf documents that are required for the project archives, knowledge dissemination, and in developing future funding applications. This work is best undertaken by an information specialist. As an embedded team member, the staff librarian does all of that 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. Furthermore, our staff librarians have obtained a good understanding of the data management software we use in newer projects (REDCap) and have responsibility over organization of the data collected there. Finally, they act as mentors and supervisors to students that undertake literature reviews or are tasked with developing and distributing our monthly citation list, Trends in Pediatric Palliative Care Research. Students that they have worked with include those from UBC programs in Medicine, Nursing, Information (Library) and Pharmacy.
Colleen Pawliuk
Librarian-Information Manager
Library, archival, and information services has been a component of all of our previous research studies and have proven to be invaluable in organizing manuscripts, citations, and large volumes of paper and pdf documents that are required for the project archives, knowledge dissemination, and in developing future funding applications. This work is best undertaken by an information specialist. As an embedded team member, the staff librarian does all of that 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. Furthermore, our staff librarians have obtained a good understanding of the data management software we use in newer projects (REDCap) and have responsibility over organization of the data collected there. Finally, they act as mentors and supervisors to students that undertake literature reviews or are tasked with developing and distributing our monthly citation list, Trends in Pediatric Palliative Care Research. Students that they have worked with include those from UBC programs in Medicine, Nursing, Information (Library) and Pharmacy.
Michael Potts
Statistician and Health Care Researcher
Michael Potts MCS, BSN is currently filling in for Elisa Castra-Noriega as Statistician and Health Care Researcher. While the Siden Lab works with PhD level statisticians for advanced research design and methodology, Canuck place also works with Master’s trained computer scientists and statisticians. Michael has experience working with Machine Learning and Bayesian Statistics to help create machine learning frameworks which are used for detecting complex patterns and relationships in data. Michael is also responsible for liaising with Population data BC, and external researchers, as well he is responsible for ensuring data protections and compliance with research ethics. Michael is passionate about health, machine learning and the benefit of utilizing both for answering complex research questions.