Our speakers
Dr. Ahmed Al-Saleh is a Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellow at the University of Calgary. He earned his medical degree and completed his Pediatric Residency training in Kuwait before pursuing advanced subspecialty training in Canada. His clinical and academic interests include neonatal neurocritical care.
Dr. Michael-Andrew Assaad is a pediatrician and neonatologist at CHU Sainte-Justine in Montreal. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Université de Montréal and a researcher at the Azrieli Research Centre of CHU Sainte-Justine. He holds a master’s degree in Health Professions Education. His work focuses on improving neonatal care in community hospitals, particularly through simulation-based training, education tailored to local realities, and quality improvement initiatives.
Stéphanie Bélanger serves as the Pediatric Critical Care Transport Team Coordinator at Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton. A bilingual respiratory therapist with over 15 years of clinical experience, she has specialized in pediatric critical care transport since 2012. Passionate about advancing transport medicine, she is a respected leader in her field, as well as a proud mother of two and an enthusiastic lover of the outdoors.
Jessica Carew has been a Respiratory Therapist for 22 years at IWK Health, working mainly in PICU and NICU. Since 2011, She has been on the IWK\EHS LifeFlight team doing neonatal, pediatric, and obstetric critical care transports. She has also served as Clinical Practice Coordinator since 2017
Dr. Michael Castaldo is a Neonatologist and Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia. He studied at McGill, University College Dublin, residency at Cohen Children's Medical Center in NY, and the University of Toronto for his Fellowship Training. He has been at BC Women's Hospital NICU since 2017 and currently serves as Transport Director and Co-Program Director for the Neonatal Hemodynamics and Targeted Neonatal Echocardiography AFC Program.
Dr. Florence Cayouette completed her pediatric residency at the Université de Montréal, followed by fellowship training in pediatric critical care at the University of Ottawa. She then completed an additional year of training at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, where she worked with the CATS specialized pediatric transport team. Since 2022, she works as a pediatric intensivist at the Centre mère-enfant Soleil of the CHU de Québec-Université Laval and co-leads the local pediatric transport team.
Kathy Clavet has served as Assistant Nurse Manager for Neonatal Transport at CHU de Québec since 2015. As a Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP) Master Instructor and an ACoRN Instructor, she plays a key role in advancing clinical expertise and promoting the continuous improvement of newborn stabilization and transport practices for infants requiring specialized care.
Dr. Marko Culjat is a SickKids neonatologist and Associate Medical Director for Neonatal Transport, Acute Care Transport Team. He leads neonatal point-of-care ultrasound and is the medical quality improvement lead for the transport team. His work also includes telemedicine implementation and optimization of vascular access applications.
Dr. Amélie Cyr completed pediatric training at the University of Saskatchewan and pediatric critical care training at the Stollery Children’s Hospital. She pursued an additional year of training at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne and gained additional experience in pediatric transport medicine as part of their Pediatric Infant Perinatal Emergency Retrieval (PIPER) team.
Dr. Allan de Caen is a Pediatric Intensivist and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Stollery Children’s Hospital and the University of Alberta in Edmonton. More than 25 years ago, he played a pivotal role in establishing Stollery’s Pediatric Critical Care Transport Team and has served as its Medical Director since its inception, helping shape the delivery of specialized critical care transport services across the region.
Dr. Julie De Carufel graduated from the Université de Montréal Family Medicine Residency Program (Enhanced Skills in Emergency Medicine) in 2014 and subsequently completed additional training in medical expertise. She has been working in the Emergency Department at CHUM since 2014 and also practiced in the Emergency Department at Sainte-Justine Hospital from 2015 to 2020. Since 2017, she has served as a transport physician and medical regulator with the Quebec Aeromedical Evacuation Program (EVAQ). In 2024, she was appointed Medical Director of the program.
Dr. Rachel Deschamps is a pediatric intensivist at the CHU de Québec-Université Laval Mother and Child Centre (CMES) and co-lead of the local pediatric ground transport program. She had the opportunity to complete specialized training at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, and at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, where pediatric transport teams have been established for several decades. She then joined the Québec City team to help develop and implement its own pediatric transport program. Her particular interests include training team members through in situ simulations conducted in ambulances, in collaboration with multidisciplinary healthcare teams.
Dr. Jennifer Foster is a pediatric intensivist and the head of the PICU at IWK Health in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She has been a transport medicine physician, providing both in-flight and telephone-based patient care throughout Ontario (LHSC-based pediatric transport team, Ornge), Canada’s Northern Territories, Australia, and the Maritimes. She has been the medical oversight physician for pediatric critical care transport at EHS LifeFlight for 8 years. Her research focuses on patient and family experience and PICU outcomes, and she has an emerging focus on minimizing unnecessary resource and fossil fuel usage and keeping children and their families in their regions.
Dr. Aanne-Marie Gosselin completed her medical training at the University of Ottawa and her pediatric residency at McGill University (Montreal Children's Hospital), followed by additional training in emergency medicine and critical care. She began her career serving Inuit communities in the Hudson Bay region and working in the Emergency Department of the Montreal Children's Hospital. Since 2022, she has served as Medical Co-Lead for interhospital transport at the Montreal Children's Hospital, within Équipe Montréal.
Cindi Haples is a Transport Nurse Clinician with the Child Health Transport Team out of Winnipeg, Manitoba. She finished her degree with a placement in a remote, northern nursing station, started her career in PICU 13 years ago and transitioned to transport nursing 9 years ago.
Dr. Jenna Lakhani is a neonatologist in Calgary, Alberta and the Medical Director for the Southern Alberta Neonatal Transport Service (SANTS). She is actively involved in optimizing neonatal transport locally and provincially through enhancing team communication, providing outreach education to centres outside of Calgary and optimizing the management of critically ill infants before, and during transport. She is very interested in optimizing team dynamics and promoting family-centred care in the transport setting.
Lisa Leroux is the Pediatric and Neonatal Critical Care Transport Team Manager and Rapid Response Team Manager at Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton. She has 25 years of critical care nursing experience, extensive leadership and management experience, with a focus on transport, high-acuity care, quality, and team performance.
Dr. Adela Matettore is a Pediatric Critical Care Physician and Transport Lead in the PICU at BC Children’s Hospital. She serves as the Medical Director of Pediatric and Perinatal Critical Care Transport at BC Emergency Health Services. She is also Medical Director of the Pediatric Acute Transport to Children’s Hospital (PATCH) Team and the Provincial Pediatric Transport Advisor Program in British Columbia.
Dr. Narvey is the former Section Head of Neonatology in Winnipeg, and current medical director of the Child Health Transport Team. He has worked for over a decade with the Canadian Pediatric Society first as a member and chair of the Fetus and Newborn Committee and is the current President-Elect for the organization.
Dr François Olivier completed his training in pediatrics and neonatology at Université Laval. He joined the neonatology team at the Montreal Children’s Hospital in 2016, where he has been serving as Medical Director of the neonatal transport team since 2018.
Luke Petan is a Registered Respiratory Therapist with over 16 years of experience in neonatal intensive care and neonatal transport in the Calgary/Southern Alberta zone. He is an NRP instructor for his hospital and has contributed to clinical research and policy development in the neonatal fields.
Dr. Stephanie Redpath is an Associate Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Ottawa, Neonatologist, and Medical Director of the Children’s Hospital for Eastern Ontario Critical Care Transport Team. She completed her Paediatric and subspecialty Neonatal training in the United Kingdom and has been in Ottawa since 2010. In 2023, Dr Redpath became the first Neonatologist in Canada to be recognized through the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons as an expert in Prehospital and Transport Medicine. Dr Redpath’s leadership and clinical expertise lie in quality of patient care and health care systems enhancement, recognition and management of the critically ill neonate, including the development and dissemination of education curricula related to neonatal critical care and transport. Her funded research, and numerous quality improvement initiatives, targeting neuroprotective care practices and outcome improvement, seek to bridge the prehospital, transport and NICU environments.
Véronique Rochon has been an Assistant Chief Respiratory Therapist and a Respiratory Therapist at CHU de Québec, Centre mère-enfant Soleil for 17 years. She has been a member of the neonatal and pediatric transport teams since their inception and works in close collaboration with ÉVAQ.
Christina Santamaria is a pediatric emergency physician at CHU Sainte-Justine. She completed her medical training at the Université de Montréal, followed by her pediatric residency and pediatric emergency medicine fellowship at CHU Sainte-Justine. She also completed a fellowship in pediatric traumatology at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Medical Education at Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Geneviève Tremblay has been a neonatologist at CHU de Québec since 2016. She serves as the Medical Director of the neonatal transport team. She completed a two-year fellowship in neonatal transport in Perth, Australia, as well as a master's degree in aeromedical transport in New Zealand.
Dr. Tremblay Roy graduated from the Université de Sherbrooke (2009) and is a specialist in pediatrics and pediatric critical care, with expertise in interhospital transport. He is the Head of the Department of Pediatrics at the CIUSSS de l’Estrie-CHUS and also serves as the provincial lead of the ministerial pediatric transport committee. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in health management at Imperial College.
