Dr. Cathy Risdon

Dr. Cathy Risdon is the first holder of the David Braley-Nancy Gordon Endowed Chair in Family Medicine. Her mandate is to develop innovations in education, clinical service and research relating to the doctor-patient and interdisciplinary team relationships.

Dr. Risdon is a professor as well as the founding co-director of the new Professional Competency Curriculum within McMaster's COMPASS Undergraduate MD Curriculum. This curriculum is the first of its kind in Canada to use interprofessional pairs of clinicians to teach professionalism, effective relationships, ethical reasoning and social accountability to groups of medical students. She has completed a Doctorate of Management in Organizational Change and the University of Hertfordshire where her research explored themes of excellence and improvisation within curriculum design and implementation.

Dr. Risdon draws upon principles of complexity and organizational change in her work within the faculty to create excellence in interprofessional care and education within clinical and academic settings. Her leadership in the field of interprofessional collaboration has resulted in over 2.5 million dollars in recent grants to promote effective health care on interprofessional teams. She has conducted training and consultations across North America for primary care and community based agencies wishing to improve their capacity for effective team and interprofessional collaborations.