Dr. Michelle Lem graduated from the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) in 2001, and founded Community Veterinary Outreach in 2003, a registered charity that improves the health of people and their pets’ experiencing homelessness and housing vulnerability through a “One Health” model of care. By offering human health services and health education alongside preventative veterinary care, Community Veterinary Outreach was the first of its kind to provide innovative access to both veterinary and human health care for at-risk populations. Community Veterinary Outreach has programs across Canada from Whitehorse, YT to Halifax, NS.
Michelle has practiced companion animal medicine and in New Zealand and Ottawa. From 2003 to 2009, Michelle provided behavioural consultations for companion animals on a referral basis; consulted for police and military canine units, from 2009 till 2011; and taught in the Veterinary Assistant and Technician programs at Algonquin College from 2004 till 2014.
Michelle received her MSc in Population Medicine in 2012, studying the effects of pet ownership on street-involved youth. Her work and research have been published in peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, Anthrozoös, the Canadian Veterinary Journal, Canadian Journal of Public Health, Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless, Animals, Canadian Journal of Dental Hygiene and Preventive Veterinary Medicine.
In 2018 Michelle received her Master of Social Work from Carleton University, focusing on the link between human and animal violence, pet ownership among marginalized populations, wellbeing in the veterinary profession, and One Health approaches to intervention and practice. Michelle and her team developed the Animal Care Guidelines for Emergency Co-Sheltering and the Risk Assessment for Companion Animals in Domestic Violence. Michelle also works in the Equine Assisted Learning space to support women and youth who have experienced trauma. Michelle is also currently the Veterinary Social Worker at Capital City Specialty and Emergency Hospital, where she supports both pet owners and team members, as well as team communication and culture.
Michelle was elected an Ashoka fellow for her social innovation in accessible health care for marginalized populations and has received numerous awards including the OVC Young Alumnus Award, The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Award and the CVMA’s Presidents Award. Michelle was the recipient of the 2019 World Small Animal Veterinary Association’s Global One Health Award, and in 2023 received an honourary degree Doctor of Laws by the University of Guelph.
Dr. Paul Robb is a small animal veterinarian who has been in practice for over 35 years. He has been a clinic owner, has served as former president of the Nova Scotia Veterinary Medical Association and has sat on numerous committees for the NSVMA including a legislative advisory panel involving amendments to the Veterinary Medical Act in Nova Scotia. He co-authored a paper on secondary traumatic stress in veterinarians.
Over the past 2 years he has been active in establishing a Community Veterinary Outreach program in Halifax. In his spare time, he enjoys the new found benefits of being a grandfather and torments his family and pets regularly with his frequent musical recitals.
Dr. Quinn Rausch is a Postdoctoral Fellow working with Dr. Lauren Van Patter to understand how Canadian organizations are addressing financial, geographic, cultural and disability-related barriers to accessing animal healthcare and developing a program evaluation tool to assess organizational impact. They completed a PhD in epidemiology and companion animal behaviour and welfare with a focus on puppy behavioural development in the Department of Population Medicine at the Ontario Veterinary College in 2023. Their overall goal is to generate and effectively mobilize knowledge about companion animals in human society to inform community partnership in animal care, improve companion animal welfare, human wellbeing and the human-companion bond.
Dr. John VanLeeuwen has been active in teaching, research and service at AVC since 1997. He has expanded the reach of his activities beyond the Atlantic Canadian region through his professional and volunteer commitments to Farmers Helping Farmers (FHF – based in PEI) and Veterinarians without Border-Canada (VWB – based in Ottawa).
Partnering with FHF for 20 years, he travels to Kenya twice yearly for three weeks to teach livestock health management courses involving AVC and Kenyan students and professionals. The case material used to teach these courses is provided through his volunteer veterinary services involving smallholder dairy farmers (SDF), in partnership with local veterinarians/paravets. Partnering with Kenyan universities and research institutes, he has also supervised dozens of undergraduate and graduate students from Canada and Kenya who conduct research projects involving cow comfort and other welfare-related topics on SDF in Kenya, with funding from SJDAWC and other sources.
Volunteering with VWB for nearly 20 years in various committee and executive positions, he has been involved in the administration, service-provision for SDF, and training of Canadian and international animal health professionals in a variety of countries around the world. He also coordinated the development and administration of a VWB small animal service program that now partners with over a dozen communities in Northern Canada (with funding from SJDAWC and other sources).
He has over 300 scientific research publications and presentations, and a multitude of community presentations as well, largely on the above activities. He will share his thoughts and experiences on how veterinarians can enhance animal care for better communities, with examples from Kenya and Northern Canada.
Dr. Marti Hopson studied music and fine arts in Montreal and Victoria before completing veterinary studies at the Ontario Veterinary College. BFA (Concordia University), MMus (University of Victoria), DVM (Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph), small animal internship (AVC).
Dr Hopson is Adjunct Faculty in Companion Animals (sessional lecturer and Community Practice) … with interests in small animal shelter medicine, acupuncture, and nutrition.
Dr. Hopson is one of the coordinators for the Chinook Project which she helped to initiate in 2006. The Chinook Project sends a team of vets and students to remote Northern communities each year to provide free veterinary care.