In 2000, Dr Risdon was named to Canada’s first endowed Chair in Family Medicine. The David Braley and Nancy Gordon Endowed Chair was created to foster educational, research and clinical innovations to support relationships in health care. Some of Dr. Risdon’s current work is focused creating a competency based curriculum to teach interprofessional collaboration, self-awareness, ethics, interpersonal skills and professionalism to medical students. The curriculum’s launch in 2005 marked the start of a process of continuous revision and reflection as Dr. Risdon seeks to involve faculty, students, colleagues from other disciplines and the public in activities of exemplary professional formation and practice.

Dr. Risdon has recently completed a Doctorate of Management in Organizational Change at the Centre for Management and Complexity at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. Her research is focussed on how to teach and evaluate collaboration, improvisation and professionalism within health sciences education and practice settings. After completing a degree in Journalism and Women’s Studies, Dr. Cathy Risdon finished her MD and her Family Medicine fellowship at McMaster University. Her clinical time is spent at the McMaster Family Practice where she is the unit Co-Director and involved in patient care and the teaching and supervision of medical students and Family Medicine residents.  

Cathy Risdon, MD, DMan, CCFP, FCFP (1:09-10)

McMaster University

Dept of Family Medicine

690 Main Street West

Hamilton ON L8S 1A4 Canada

Phone: (905) 521-5016

Fax: (905) 521-5010

risdonc@mcmaster.ca