Iona Heath worked as an inner-city general practitioner in Kentish Town in London from 1975 until 2010, caring for a mostly disadvantaged and hugely ethnically diverse population.    She was a nationally elected member of the Council of the UK Royal College of General Practitioners from 1989 to 2010 and chaired the College’s Committee on Medical Ethics from 1998 to 2004 and the International Committee from 2006 to 2009. She was elected President of the College for a three-year term from 2009 to 2012.

From 1993 to 2001, she was an editorial adviser for the British Medical Journal and chaired the journal’s Ethics Committee from 2004 to 2009.  She was a member of the world executive of the World Organisation of Family Doctors from 2007 to 2012.  

She gave the Harveian Oration for the UK Royal College of Physicians in 2011.

She wrote a regular Op Ed column for the British Medical Journal for eight years and has contributed essays to many other medical journals across the world.  She has been particularly interested to explore the nature of general practice, the importance of medical generalism, issues of justice and liberty in relation to health care, the corrosive influence of the medical industrial complex and the commercialisation of medicine, and the challenges posed by disease-mongering, the care of the dying, and violence within families.  Her most recent book John Berger – Ways of Learning was published by Oxford University Press in September in the UK and on November 12 in the US.

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Professor Timothy Caulfield is an unrivalled communicator who debunks myths and assumptions about innovation in the health sector — from research on stem cells to diets and alternative medicine — for the benefit of the public and decision-makers. For over 20 years, he was the Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy and is currently a professor in the Faculty of Law and the School of Public Health and the Research Director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta.

Caulfield has been involved in a variety of interdisciplinary research endeavours that have led him to publish more than 400 academic articles. His research focuses on topics like stem cells, genetics, research ethics, the public representations of science, and public health policy issues. He has won numerous academic, science communication, and writing awards, and is a Member of the Order of Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

Caulfield also writes frequently for the popular press and is the author of four bestselling books: The Cure for Everything: Untangling the Twisted Messages about Health, Fitness, and Happiness; Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything?: When Celebrity Culture and Science Clash; Relax, Dammit!: A User’s Guide to the Age of Anxiety; and his most recent, The Certainty Illusion.

In addition, Caulfield is the co-founder of the science engagement initiative, #ScienceUpFirst. He has also hosted and produced several documentaries, including the award-winning television show, A User’s Guide to Cheating Death, which has aired in over 60 countries and is currently streaming on Netflix in North America.

Professor Catherine Hudon MD, PhD, is a clinician-researcher in the Department of Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine, and assistant Vice Dean for Clinical Research at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of Université de Sherbrooke. She is also interim scientific director of Réseau-1 Québec, a primary care research and innovation network, the Quebec branch of the Canadian Primary Care Research Network. She holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Implementing Integrated Care for People with Complex Needs and is an expert in mixed methods, participatory approaches with key stakeholders, and the scale-up of integrated care innovations. She is a consultant to the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services on the scale-up of the V1SAGES approach, which she and her team have been developing and evaluating for the past 12 years. She is a member of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and of the College of the Royal Society of Canada.

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