Meet the Team

Dr. Meb Rashid

Toronto, ON

I have had the privilege of serving newly arrived Refugees for over twenty years in Toronto, initially through the Community Health Centre sector and since 2011, at the Crossroads Clinic at Women's College Hospital and at the Christie Refugee Welcome Centre.  I am constantly taken aback at the resiliency and optimism of so many of my patients despite all the injustices they have endured.  One of the joys of my work has been having the opportunity to be involved in the community of clinicians that serve refugee populations-it is an inspiring, dedicated, and selfless group.  Through the Canadian Refugee Health Network, I am hoping we can expand this community and share our knowledge so that we optimize the care that we are providing to those that come to Canada through the refugee stream.

Rachel Talavlikar

Rachel Talavlikar is a primary care physician dedicated to providing equitable, high-quality care for marginalized populations including refugees and immigrants. She completed medical school and residency with additional training in global and women’s health at the University of Calgary in 2014.  Prior to medical school, she worked overseas in Switzerland and India with the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts after completing a degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Alberta.

Dr. Juan Carlos Chirgwin
Montreal, QC

Dr. Chirgwin has a family medicine practice at CLSC Park Extension since 2002. He arrived to Toronto in 1974 after Chile’s military coup, and then lived in three other countries before settling in Montreal to complete his studies. His migration trajectory has given him an interest in human rights and access to care issues for newcomers. At the CLSC he witnessed various waves of de-centralization structural changes since 2005, none of which made it any easier for asylum seekers to get acceptable primary care services. He runs a solo asylum seeker screening clinic from within the family medicine teaching unit, where his colleagues and residents also follow a similar population.

Professor Kevin Pottie
Family Physician-Researcher

Professor Kevin Pottie has led a 20-year research program in global health equity and evidence-based guidelines. His systematic reviews and clinical guidelines are transforming the clinical approach to refugee care. During the European refugee health crisis, he worked at WHO and then led the European Migrant health guidelines (ECDC, 2018). He created the Refugee Health e-Learning (www.ccirhken.ca) and along with other members of the Canadian Refugee Health Network, he was happy to contribute to the recent Canadian Family Physician guidelines for refugees and other migrants during COVID-19. He is a leader at the Cochrane Equity Methods and GRADE Working Group and a full professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Western University. He lives in London, Ontario and enjoys birding, bike polo, and he used to be a professional juggler and unicyclist. Cochrane Equity Global Mental Health https://methods.cochrane.org/equity/projects/global-mental-health

Cochrane Equity Homeless Health guidelines, systematic reviews, curriculum, and checklist papers: https://methods.cochrane.org/equity/projects/homeless-health-guidelines

Tim Holland, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Family Physician and Medical Lead, Newcomer Health Clinic
Steering Committee and N4 Liaison

Creating the Newcomer Health Clinic in Nova Scotia wouldn't have been possible without the incredibly supportive network of refugee-health providers across Canada. The national guidelines from Kevin Pottie and his colleagues were the foundational document for our clinical practices. Meb Rashid and the Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care taught us how we could use our voices as physicians to advocate for our refugee patients who had no voice in our society. Both Meb and Kevin visited us in Nova Scotia and provided incredible guidance, support and encouragement as we got our clinic started. As we grew, we learned valuable lessons from partner clinics across Canada - from Vancouver to St. John's. We have learned from their successes and challenges. Any success that we have had in Nova Scotia is due to the support from the national community of refugee health providers. And we've been privileged to pass that support and guidance forward to other newly born clinics in PEI and New Brunswick as well as passing on lessons of our success back to our more established partners across the country. The Canadian Refugee Health Network formalizes this vital community of refugee-health providers from across Canada. By bringing these informal networks into a structured body, we hope to create a sustainable structure that can strengthen existing networks, increase the ease of knowledge translation, create new opportunities for research, amplify our ability to advocate for our patients, and help new providers find their feet.

Dr. Gabriel Fabreau

Gabriel Fabreau is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary. He co-founded and co-leads Refugee Health YYC, a research program, education and innovation platform focused on the health and healthcare of recently resettled refugees and refugee claimants at the O’Brien Institute for Public Health at the University of Calgary (www.RefugeeHealthYYC.ca). Clinically, he cares for recently arrived refugees in Calgary as an embedded specialist at the Mosaic Refugee Health Clinic since 2014. Dr. Fabreau completed his medical training in Internal Medicine in Calgary, an academic fellowship in General Internal Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Master of Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. His interests include health services and public health research with a particular focus on refugee health, and high-needs socially vulnerable populations.

ORICID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8783-7556

Dr. Mei-ling Wiedmeyer
Vancouver, BC

Dr. Wiedmeyer is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the UBC Department of Family Practice, and family physician living and working on Unceded /Vancouver, BC. She works as a family physician and clinical lead at the Umbrella Multicultural Health Cooperative, and Clinician Scientist with the Evaluating Inequities in Refugee & Immigrants’ Health Access (IRIS) Project.

Tatum Burdo (From everywhere! Saint John, NB, Kitchener-Waterloo, ON, and Buffalo, NY)
Recent Dalhousie Medical School grad, incoming PGY1 Family Medicine Resident
Member-at-large, NB Representative

Dr. Tatum Burdo is participating in the CRHN Network to share and learn more about best practices in refugee health, and to ensure better health outcomes for newcomers to Canada. She completed a Masters of Public Health degree with an emphasis on refugee resettlement. She is currently participating in a global health/refugee-focused family medicine residency program.

Dr. Molly Whalen-Browne

Edmonton, AB

Dr. Molly Whalen-Browne is a family physician who provides primary care services to refugees at the New Canadians Health Centre and who also has a focused reproductive and sexual health practice. She also practices remote family medicine in the Northwest Territories and is passionate about medical education. She is the Program Director for the Health Equity Enhanced Skills program at the University of Calgary and is also the Domain Lead for Health Equity in the Family Medicine program at the University of Calgary.

Carolyn Beukeboom

Kitchener, Ontario

Nurse Practitioner

Carolyn Beukeboom is a primary health care nurse practitioner who works in a Refugee Health Clinic in Kitchener, Ontario. She has worked in various capacities overseas many of which involved health teaching and educational support of nursing staff, community health workers and health promoters. Carolyn completed a Master of Science in Public Health from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She currently is an Adjunct Lecturer at Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing, Western University (where she has taught global health), and at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto.