Professor Gary Sibbald has been a wound care leader for over 35 years in Canada and internationally. As a dermatologist and internist early in his career, he recognized the chronic wound patient care gap.

 

His clinical patient-centric care has successfully treated complex wounds reducing excessive pain, improving management of infection, the increased healing of chronic wounds or improved everyday living for patients with maintenance or non-healable wounds.

 

As an educator, Dr. Sibbald was co-founder of a key opinion leader course (International Interprofessional Wound Care Course-IIWCC) accredited by the University of Toronto.  Since 1999, there have been 49 courses both in Canada and internationally (with the 50th course starting in September). Professor Sibbald has mentored and educated not only IIWCC graduates but also fostered interprofessional leadership of nurses and allied health professionals.

 

Professor Sibbald has been involved in many projects on an international level to improve the health qualities in various countries. One example is the Guyana Diabetes Foot Project, where Dr. Sibbald, along with an interprofessional team of nurses and chiropodists, travelled to Guyana, South America to assess and treat the high rate of diabetes in the country, along with reducing diabetes-related lower limb amputations.

 

He is the founder of WoundPedia, a not-for-profit educational initiative. He is also Project Lead for both ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) Ontario Skin & Wound and Indigenous ECHO Canada Skin & Wound that virtually reached 600+ healthcare professionals, including Northern and Indigenous centres, to create interprofessional skin and wound teams provincially and nationally. 

 

He is an accomplished author and co-editor-in-chief with over 270 peer-reviewed publications. He was also an investigator on numerous clinical trials leading to the launch of new products and innovations.

 

His continuing healthcare innovations in patient care, education and research have contributed to Canada’s leadership in wound management.

Dr. Parsons is a Dermatologist who has spent 20 years in the area of chronic wounds and the skin diseases associated with chronic wounds. She is a graduate of the IIWCC program from the University of Toronto and is currently working on her Master’s dissertation for Cardiff University’s masters’ program in Wound Healing and Tissue Repair.

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Dr. Parsons has worked extensively in Canada, the UK and the Middle East in wound clinics. She has participated in CME’s on wound healing in Canada, the US, Qatar and London, UK. Dr. Parsons is the Medical Director for the Sheldon Chumir Wound Clinic in southern Alberta, a multidisciplinary clinic with wound care services provided by Family Medicine, Vascular Surgery, Podiatry, Orthotics, Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Dermatology, Geriatrics and Orthopedic Surgery. She is also the Co-Chair for the Clinical Pathway to Care for the Diabetic Foot in Alberta.

Dr. Alavi is a Professor of Dermatology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. She completed her dermatology, followed by a two-year fellowship in Wound Healing and a Master of Science in Community Health at the University of Toronto. Her clinical and research interests include wound healing, inflammatory skin diseases, and hidradenitis suppurativa.

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Dr. Alavi currently serves as Director of the Medical Dermatology Fellowship at Mayo Clinic. She has received numerous honors, including the Practitioner of the Year Award from the Canadian Dermatology Association (2017), the Hidradenitis Suppurativa Research Award from the HSF Foundation (2019), and the Supervisor of the Year Award from the Mayo Clinic Department of Dermatology (2022). She was also the principal investigator of several clinical trials focused on inflammatory skin conditions.