Leighanne O Parkes, Canada

Dr. Leighanne Parkes is Royal College of Physicians of Canada certified in Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases, and Medical Microbiology. She has completed a clinical fellowship in infectious prevention and control at the University of Toronto. She presently works as a physician with the division of infectious diseases at the Jewish General Hospital and as a microbiologist with the department of Laboratory Medicine at McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Quebec. She is the co-medical director of the department of infection prevention and control at the CIUSSS du Centre-Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal and is the chair of the Infection Prevention and Control Advisory Committee for Medical Microbiology at McGill University. Her work is focused on infection prevention and control and antimicrobial stewardship in long-term care as well as the role of engineering controls in infection prevention. During the COVID pandemic she played a role in policy development, personal-protective equipment stewardship and outbreak management for the CIUSSS du Centre-Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal. She has published on COVID vaccine hesitancy in health-care professionals, duration of SARS-COV-2 infectivity in the elderly and upon re-infection as well as COVID outbreak dynamics in long-term care.