It gives us great pleasure to formally announce the appointment of Dr. Hélène Rousseau to the position of Assistant Dean for Rural Education, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Rousseau served as Director of the Rural Education Program at the Faculty of Medicine, a position she held with great dedication from 2006, and as Interim Rural Coordinator for Family Medicine at McGill from 2005 to 2006. In her new role, she will continue to strengthen the program’s outreach initiatives and provide fundamental support for residents and students (clerks) in training in Quebec’s more remote regions, a priority area for our Faculty.

Dr. Rousseau has devoted her career to clinical practice and academic leadership in family medicine. After completing her medical degree at the Université de Montréal and pursuing a residency in family medicine at Cité de la Santé Hospital in Laval, she began her clinical practice in perinatalogy at the Anna-Laberge Hospital Centre. Her exceptional dedication was further recognized with appointments at the CLSC Lac St-Louis, the Jewish General Hospital, the CSSS de la Montagne and the CSSS du Lac Temiscamingue, the latter three where she continues to contribute her skills and expertise.

She has contributed extensively to undergraduate and graduate education as a member since joining our Department of Family Medicine in 2003, and lends her skills in teaching a wide variety of courses in obstetrical and perinatal medicine. On the international level, her compassion and vision for a better world often bring her to teach the ALSO (Advanced Life support in Obstetrics) course in war-ravaged countries such as Rwanda and has also brought her most recently in 2010 to earthquake-ravaged Haiti. On the local level, she has played a pivotal role in opening various family medicine units such as in Val d’Or and the aforementioned Anna-Laberge, and has helped greatly with the Campus Santé Outaouais, strengthening the excellence of McGill’s rural education program there.

She is a member of numerous committees including the Faculty of Medicine’s Educational Executive Committee, the Postgraduate Executive Committee, the CME Executive Committee, the Clerkship Committee and the Executive Committee of the Department of Family Medicine, as well as several provincial committees such as the Comité des études médicales et de l’agrément (CÉMA) and the Comité sur l’évolution des disciplines médicales (CÉDIM), Collège des médecins du Québec.

On behalf of the Faculty of Medicine, please join us in welcoming Dr. Rousseau to the position of Assistant Dean for Rural Education, which we know she will fill with characteristic enthusiasm, energy and aplomb.

Richard I. Levin, MD
Vice-Principal (Health Affairs)

Dean of the Faculty of Medicine

Joyce Pickering, MD
Associate Dean, Medical Education and Student Affairs