Council for Services to Children and Adolescents (CSCA)

The Council for Services to Children and Adolescents (CSCA) was created in 1997 to ensure the needs of infants, children and adolescents and families are met within the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). The CSCA reports to the Board of the MUHC. The CSCA’s responsibilities include, but are not limited to, monitoring, evaluating and making recommendations concerning orientations, priorities, strategic plan, policies and budgets regarding pediatric and adolescent services.

VOTING MEMBERS

Dr. Tanya Di Genova

Role on the CSCA: MCH Council of Physicians, Dentists, and Pharmacists (CPDP) Chair

Member since: 2020

Tanya Di Genova MDCM, FRCPC, MBA, is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and a member of the Division of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine of the Montreal Children Hospital. She completed her training as a Pediatric Critical Care Physician at the Montreal Children’s Hospital and Toronto Sick Kids. She has been working in the Pediatric Critical Care Unit at the Montreal Children’s Hospital since 2017. After her clinical training, she saw an opportunity to marry her medical degree with business administration and therefore completed a master’s in business administration at Desautels, McGill University and a certificate at the Centre of Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at the University of Toronto, where she developed expertise in healthcare leadership. She has taken on several leadership positions: such as Interim Chairperson of the Council of Physicians, Dentists and Pharmacists for the MCH site since November 2020. As the first Medical Director of Patient Flow at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, she leads numerous projects to advance work-efficiency, cost-effectiveness, resource utilization, inter-disciplinary collaboration and patient flow within the hospital setting and among the critical care community.

Heather Davies

Role on the CSCA: Council of Nurses

Member since: 2018

Heather Davies has worked at the McGill University Health Centre since 1988. After graduating from McGill University, she began her nursing career at the Montreal General Hospital before moving over to the Montreal Children’s Hospital in 1993. Since then Heather has worked as an Advance Practice Nurse in pediatric neurology. She has a particular interest in the transition from pediatric to adult health care for adolescents who have a cognitive impairment and for adolescents who have been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Antoinette Lemieux

Role on the CSCA: Multidisciplinary Council Representative

Member since: 2022

Antoinette Lemieux has been a social worker at the MUHC since 2008, first on the adult sites and currently on the pediatric site since February 2021. Antoinette is the current Multidisciplinary Council representative to the CSCA.

Dr. Annette Majnemer

Role on the CSCA: McGill Representative

Member since: 2018

Dr. Annette Majnemer is an occupational therapist with doctoral training in the neurosciences. She is a professor at the School of Physical and Occupational Therapy at McGill University, with cross appointments in the Departments of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Pediatrics. She is currently Vice Dean – Education for the Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, and is a member of Pediatrics’ Departmental Educational Leadership Committee. Dr. Majnemer is a member of the Division of Pediatric Neurology at the Montreal Children’s Hospital and is a senior scientist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (since 1990) where she leads CHILD-BRIGHT, a national patient-oriented research network.

Melissa Sonberg

Role on the CSCA: McGill Representative

Member since: 2018

Melissa Sonberg has enjoyed over three decades of international leadership success across a wide range of enterprises, always playing key roles at the heart of transformative change. Throughout her career and as a member of the C-suite, she has developed significant expertise in balancing excellence in operational execution with effective governance, amid multiple and complex stakeholder demands. Following her most recent corporate role, Ms. Sonberg’s focus is now on Board-level engagements and influencing the development of the next generation of leadership through her appointment as Adjunct Professor and Executive in Residence at the Desautels Faculty of Management of McGill University.

Dr. Beth Foster

Role on the CSCA: Chief Department of Pediatrics

Member since: 2021

Dr. Foster is a clinical epidemiologist and a tenured Professor of Pediatrics at McGill University. She has held numerous leadership positions at the Research Institute of the McGill University health Centre (MUHC) and was recently appointed Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at McGill University and Pediatrician-in-Chief of the MUHC. Her primary research interest is in the long-term outcomes of children and young adults with kidney transplants. Her research program has been funded by the CIHR and the U.S. NIH (two R01s) to study medication adherence and graft outcomes in adolescent and young adult kidney transplant recipients, who she has shown to be at particularly high risk of graft loss. She has also conducted novel work identifying age-dependent differences in solid organ transplant outcomes by recipient and donor sex.

Dr. Foster has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and 9 book chapters. She has served on two international clinical practice guideline committees, on numerous CIHR grant review committees (including as Scientific Officer) and grant review committees for other agencies (Kidney Foundation of Canada, NIH, FRQS), and on several international advisory boards. She is an Associate Editor at the international journal Transplantation, and is on the Editorial boards of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology and Pediatric Transplantation. She served on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Society of Transplantation from 2015-2021. Since 2017, Dr. Foster has served in leadership positions in The Transplantation Society’s Women in Transplantation (WIT) group, and is currently the Co-Chair of WIT

Dr. Indra Gupta

Role on the CSCA: MUHC Research Institute

Member since: 2020

Indra Gupta is a Pediatric Nephrologist and Clinician-Scientist whose research focus is to understand how congenital kidney and urinary tract disorders arise in children. Dr. Gupta is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Program Director for Pediatric Nephrology of McGill University, and, the newly appointed Deputy Executive Director/Deputy Chief Scientific Officer, RI-MUHC and Director of Child Health Research at the MCH/MUHC (Interim). Dr. Gupta obtained her MD at the University of Alberta and trained in Pediatrics at McMaster University. She completed a fellowship in Pediatric Nephrology at the Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto. She was appointed to the Montreal Children’s Hospital (MCH) in 1998 and has since remained a member of the Division of Nephrology, and of the research institute at the MCH that later merged with the RI-MUHC. In 2000, Dr. Gupta was cross-appointed as an Associate Member in the Department of Human Genetics and the Division of Experimental Medicine at McGill University. Dr. Gupta’s teaching contributions range from clinical bedside teaching of medical students, pediatric residents, and nephrology residents to formal lectures in the classroom and in continuing medical education events training over 27 pediatric nephrologists since joining the division in 1998. In addition to Dr. Gupta’s successful clinical teaching, her outstanding supervision of trainees in her laboratory was acknowledged by the Department of Human Genetics in 2010 with a Teaching Award. Dr. Gupta has been very active in numerous committees, namely, Department of Human Genetics Graduate Training, Animal Care, and Evaluation of Grant Reviews. Her research interests include congenital kidney and urinary tract development, nephrotic syndrome, vesico-ureteric reflux, and epithelial biology. An expert in CAKUT (Congenital Anomalies of the Kidneys and Urinary Tract), Dr. Gupta is a sought-after speaker at numerous international conferences. Dr. Gupta is a founding member of the Kidney Disease Biorepository from Birth to Adulthood at the RI-MUHC that is collecting biological samples from children and adults with a range of kidney diseases and making these samples available to the greater scientific community to advance nephrology research to improve patient care. She has been funded by the CIHR, the FRQS, NSERC, the Kidney Foundation of Canada, and the March of Dimes.

Sylvia Morin

Role on the CSCA: Chairperson and independent member

Member since: 2013

Sylvia Morin is a consultant and former business executive with three decades of experience in areas of corporate affairs, business strategy and transformative restructurings. Whether working for large national public corporations such as Molson Coors and BCE or smaller more local organizations such as BIXI Montréal, her understanding of issues that are strategically critical to organizational sustainability and to reputation management, have helped drive operational excellence and success. Fluently bilingual and a graduate of the Institute of Corporate Directors, she has a B.A. (Public Relations, Economics and Public Administration) from Laval University and has pursued graduate studies in Public Relations at Boston University.

Hélène Livernois

Role on the CSCA: Vice-Chair and Independent Member

Member since: 2016

Hélène Livernois obtained her law degree from Université Laval in 1985. She has held various positions in the National Assembly of Quebec, within Sûreté du Québec’s executive management team, as well as in the private sector. In both the public and private sectors, Ms. Livernois helped attain objectives, managed sensitive and complex files and assisted in preventing and resolving contentious situations. She also has a special attachment to the Children’s where her daughter had the privilege of being cared for.

Jill K. Hugessen