Leadership & Innovation
Tribute to Jennifer Clarke
Jennifer Clarke has never been one to shy away from opportunity. Two years ago she stepped in as President of the Society of Graduates and led us through a productive period that included many accomplishments for our committee such as re-vamping the Society's committee structure, initiating a successful program partnership with CCHSE, changing the focus of the Annual Dinner Meeting to alumni recognition, implementing a recruitment and retention strategy to improve connections with HPME grads, elevating the profile of the leadership and literary awards, strengthening the relationship with the Department of HPME, moving toward an electronic newsletter and hiring a new business manager. Under her leadership, the organization had a solid period of organizational and financial stability.
Currently Director, Planning & Capital Redevelopment at the Rouge Valley Health System, in fact Jennifer has actually worked at the same organization for almost 13 years as it changed, merged and grew around her. By her count she has “had eight different jobs at the same place” in addition to a one-year secondment to the Ministry's HRIT. She is proudest of her success in moving Rouge Valley 's large capital redevelopment projects forward in conjunction with over 200 diverse stakeholders, from end users, to consultants, Ministry and Board of Directors. An previous achievement was serving as general manager of the women's health program for three years, the first non-clinical person to hold that role. She gained the trust of staff by her ability to listen and to get things done; she reciprocates their respect, appreciating the opportunity to learn about health care ‘in the trenches.
A Pickering native, she completed her BArt.Sc. at McMaster, an innovative program in which she was able to combine business and science courses. A summer student job at OHIP piqued her interest in health administration, and having selected HPME out of the available postgraduate programs, she worked determinedly to convince the department to admit her despite her very brief work experience. She achieved her MHSc in 1992.
The next opportunity awaiting Jennifer is a ‘reverse brain drain' move this summer with her husband Mike (a property development company CFO) and their two small children to Boynton Beach, in Florida, just north of Fort Lauderdale. She intends to explore the whole range of opportunities available there, maybe even transferring her health administration skills to another sector, and promises to keep in touch electronically, via this newsletter. Good luck, Jennifer!
Alumni Profiles
Alumni of the Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (HPME) are involved in a broad range of leadership activities across the health care sector. To promote greater awareness of the many accomplishments and innovations of this diverse group, we are pleased to include alumni profiles as a regular feature of the Society of Graduates newsletter.
This issue features Elisabeth Ross, Executive Director of the National Ovarian Cancer Association, Class of 1999 (MHSc).
Elisabeth Ross– “If you really want something, you have to make it happen.”
And that is exactly what Elisabeth Ross does: first, successfully creating the organization AboutFace, where she remains an honorary Board member and supporter, and in the past 7 years taking the National Ovarian Cancer Association (NOCA) from a two-person initiative to a national organization employing nine part-time and full-time staff and operating programs in every province. Under her leadership as Executive Director, NOCA has not only grown, it has broken ground in its information dissemination strategies, its regional program development, its award-winning website (www.ovariancanada.org) and its CME courses in ovarian cancer, set up in collaboration with medical associations and teaching hospitals. Elisabeth says the strong Board of Directors and the champions she has developed are key to NOCA's success: the overall effect has been to “turn up the volume” on ovarian cancer from a whisper to a roar.
Discussing her organization with Elisabeth, one is struck by her enthusiasm and profound commitment to her work, her deep satisfaction at “making things happen”. Though not herself a survivor of ovarian cancer, she finds the cause of ovarian cancer, a very insidious, silent killer, quite compelling and is excited at the impact her small, focused organization continues to have. She has a deep understanding of the information needs of patients and families afflicted by such serious illness who are unprepared for the huge amount of information they must assimilate and manage; she speaks only half jokingly of the need for a “patient school” to prepare patients and families.
From the beginning Elisabeth envisioned a strategy of enhancing information, treatment and prevention of ovarian cancer, a disease largely unknown because of the relatively small numbers afflicted and because of the lethality of the disease itself. Convening a wide-ranging group of stakeholders (patients, caregivers, health care professionals policy makers, researchers) in 1999, NOCA led the creation of a comprehensive strategic plan regarding ovarian cancer in Canada , which continues to serve the organization well over all these years.
Elisabeth has been particularly successful in generating and managing funding for NOCA. After the initial startup grant from the Ministry of Health, the nonprofit organization is sustained by foundation and corporate grants, by individual donors and by the proceeds from special events. Recent highlights: teal jelly bracelets (“Think Ovarian/Pensez Ovaires”) designed to help “turn up the volume” on ovarian cancer, and the unusually charming, informative book “Bearing Up With Cancer” by Dr. Annie Smith. Elisabeth relishes the ongoing challenge of balancing expansion and funding, and of partnering with creative colleagues: “collaboration is the secret to success”.
Elisabeth graduated with her MHSc from the HPME in 1999, one of the first to be admitted from a community-based, nonprofit setting, and is thankful that the Program Director and Admissions Committee at that time were “thinking outside the box” to include her in a class where almost all her colleagues came from clinical, institutional settings. The degree gave her many perspectives and skills useful in building up an organization, and she continues to draw on her Health Admin studies in people management, strategic planning and advocacy.
She is passionately concerned at the lack of both adequate funding and an implemented national strategy for cancer care in Canada . Due to population growth and aging, the incidence of cancer may increase by as much as 70% over the next 15 years. Canada is one of the few countries in the developed world which does not have a cancer control strategy in place. The one which was developed by 700 experts three years ago has yet to receive federal funding. Cancer cannot be lumped in with chronic diseases; special attention is needed to improve and standardize cancer care across Canada.
Born in Montreal , Elisabeth has considerable fluency in French and puts a high value on bilingualism in the organization, including in her hiring. In fact, Quebec 's incidence of ovarian cancer being the second highest among the provinces, it is also key to the organization's mission that the ovarian cancer message be available in our second official language. Always seeking to improve, Elisabeth is currently seeking a teacher of business French, to equip herself for the task of setting up the planned Montreal office of the organization.