Ruth Wilson
Dr. Ruth Wilson is President of the College of Family Physicians of Canada. She is a practicing family physician and educator. A Professor of Family Medicine at Queen's University, she was Chair of the Department for ten years. From 2001-2004 she served as Chair of the Ontario Family Health Network, an arm's-length provincial government agency created to implement primary care reform in Ontario.
After graduating from the University of Toronto medical program in 1976, she did further training in family medicine and anesthesia, and then worked in Sioux Lookout, Ontario providing care to a number of isolated First Nations communities. She also practiced in the remote communities of Bella Coola, British Columbia, and Baie Verte, Newfoundland, before returning to Sioux Lookout in 1985.
By 1989, as the mother of five young children, Dr. Wilson and her husband, Dr. Ian Casson, also a family physician, decided to establish a residence and practices in Kingston, Ontario. That same year, she accepted a position with the Department of Family Medicine at Queen's University. She served as coordinator of the Moose Factory Program, a medical outreach program to aboriginal people living on the west coast of James Bay. While department head she also chaired the Queen's University / Bosnia-Herzegovina steering committee, and helped establish family medicine in that country immediately post-war in 1995.
Dr. Wilson's research interests are in women's health, aboriginal health, and the lessons from these areas that affect the determinants of health. She is the co-author of the Women's Health chapters of the Oxford Textbook of Primary Care, and the editor of Implementing Primary Care Reform: Barriers and Facilitators.
In May 2002, Dr. Wilson received an honorary Doctor of Laws from the British Columbia Open University. In 2006 she completed a sabbatical year where she practiced and researched primary care in a variety of settings, including New Zealand, Canada's Arctic, the United Kingdom, St. Lucia, and Serbia
