Robert Woollard, MD, CCFP, Royal Canadian Legion Professor and Head, UBC Department of Family Practice
A Fellow of the College of Family Physicians of Canada, Dr Woollard received his MD from the University of Alberta. After 16 years of rural family practice and teaching undergraduate medicine, he joined the University of British Columbia in 1989 and has been Royal Canadian Legion Professor and Head of the Department of Family Practice since 1998.
Dr Woollard has extensive national and international experience in the field of medical education and development. He is Chair of the Committee on the Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools and recently completed a feasibility study for a new medical school in Nepal. He is Chair of the Board of the Canadian Hunger Foundation and has completed a five-year, five-university project on localized poverty reduction in Vietnam. He chaired the initial development of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) Ethical Guidelines on relationships with industry and the Task Force developing the response to Health Canada's major statement on Health Promotion, "Achieving Health for All".
He currently works in a number of venues at the local, national and international level on issues relevant to social responsibility of the medical profession. In 2005 Dr Woollard traveled to Uganda twice to chair workshops in this regard. His primary research focus is the study of complex adaptive systems as they apply to the intersection between human and environmental health. His book, "Fatal Consumption: Rethinking Sustainable Development" details some of his work in this regard.
