Board of Directors

Paul had a 30-year career at the Mary Pack Arthritis Program (MPAP) in Vancouver. Initially trained as a social worker, he provided counselling to clients for 20 years before taking a position in which he was involved in coordinating professional and patient education at MPAP, as well as other related tasks. His areas of interest are many and include patient empowerment, eHealth applications, eLearning, communities of practice, and models of care, to name a few. He has nurtured these interests through his participation in research and previous volunteer roles with AHPA and the Association of Rheumatology Professionals (ARP). He has been retired since 2019 and now lives on Vancouver Island.

Anne MacLeod, BScPT, MPH, ACPAC

Anne lives and works in Northwestern Ontario in Thunder Bay, on the traditional territory of the Anishnaabeg Fort William First Nations.  She graduated from Physiotherapy at Queen’s University in 1994, completed her Master of Public Health in 2007 and the Advanced Clinician Practitioner in Arthritis Care program in 2009.  She works as an Extended Role Practitioner in a variety of clinical settings.  The majority of her clinical time is spent working in a shared care/collaborative practice with the sole local Rheumatologist in Northwestern Ontario, where she both assesses new patients and follows stable patients, allowing for increased access to rheumatology care. In conjunction with Paediatric Rheumatologists at both Sick Kids and Children’s Hospital – London Health Sciences Centre, she delivers collaborative care for children with arthritis through Telehealth.   She is also an Assistant Professor at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. She is passionate about improving systems and service delivery to advance the care of people living with arthritis.

Originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Tricia graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Dalhousie University in 1992 and went on to complete her Occupational Therapy training at the University of Western in 1997.  She has since completed a post-professional Masters of Science in Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University, 2011.   

Tricia has been an occupational therapist at Sunnybrook’s Holland Orthopaedic and Arthritic Centre in Toronto since 2001 and has enjoyed a unique role as the Advanced Practice Occupational Therapist within Sunnybrook’s Holland Bone & Joint Program since 2007.  Her role encompasses an extended-scope clinical caseload, program development, practice-based research, mentoring and clinical teaching.  Tricia is involved with assessment and post-operative follow-up of hip & knee arthritis patients, and runs an interprofessional post-surgical follow-up clinic for Sunnybrook patients with hip fractures.  She is currently the Clinical Supervisor of the Holland Bone & Joint Program’s Advanced Practice Provider team.  Tricia holds a status Lecturer appointment at the University of Toronto and guest-lectures at Université de Montreal.  She was a contributing member of the Expert Panel for Health Quality Ontario’s Hip Fracture Quality Guidelines and has been a Board Member and former column editor for the Canadian OT publication, Occupational Therapy Now.  She is a member of the Arthritis Health Professionals Association and was the CAOT representative to the Canadian Arthritis Alliance for 5 years. Patricia is an active member of a number of Ontario Rehab Alliance task forces & advisory groups and is currently the Chair of The Ontario Rehab Care Alliance Hip Fracture Task group. 

Tricia has enjoyed helping out in her community as a Girl Guide leader for the past 8 years and also enjoys canoeing & curling in her spare time. 

Mary Ellen Marcon became a professional grandmother of 2 boys after retiring as a Physiotherapist, Advanced Clinician Practitioner in Arthritis Care with The Arthritis Society—Ontario Division in 2019.  Who knew that all that experience would lead to looking after other treasures?

    In the Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma area, Mary Ellen was able to deliver client centred primary care to residents with arthritis and to present group education sessions for self management of arthritis. She also worked alongside a rheumatologist, where she provided comprehensive rheumatology assessments to enhance timely treatment for people with inflammatory arthritis.  Follow-up assessments via Ontario Telemedicine Network helped support patients of a visiting rheumatologist. In the Timmins area, Mary Ellen collaborated with 2 visiting rheumatologists at the Timmins and District Hospital to provide a quarterly innovative Inflammatory Arthritis Clinic. These undertakings spanned 37 years of change in arthritis care and delivery.  

   Mary Ellen considers AHPA to be an important networking opportunity for arthritis health professionals across Canada.  She looks forward to being a support that  helps maintain those network bridges.

Dr. Karine Toupin April is an Associate Professor in the School of Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Ottawa. She is cross-appointed with the Department of Pediatrics and is affiliated with the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) Research Institute and the Institut du savoir Montfort. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Occupational Therapy and undertook graduate and post-graduate training in public health and epidemiology.

She has research expertise in chronic disease management, patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), shared decision making, patient engagement in research and knowledge translation. Her work has included research in pediatric and adult rheumatology, with experience in conducting systematic reviews and developing PROMs, clinical practice guidelines, patient decision support interventions and self-management tools. Her main research project aims to develop, evaluate and implement a web-based decision support intervention called the JIA Option Map to help youth with juvenile arthritis choose among pain management options with their families and health care providers. She is an editor of the Cochrane Musculoskeletal Group and the chair of the OMERACT (Outcome Measures in Rheumatology) shared decision making working group. She has been teaching occupational therapy and medical students at the University of Ottawa since 2008.

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