Saturday, October 19, 2024 - 8:00 am - 8:15 am
Welcome and Opening Remarks
Dr. Emily Ching, MD, FRCPC, CAGF
GI Health Centre
President, OAG
GI Section Chair, OMA
Dr. Ching received her medical degree at McMaster University. She then completed her residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Toronto. She went on to complete her gastroenterology training at McMaster University in 2010, where she also served as Chief Gastroenterology Resident.
Dr. Ching has been a community gastroenterologist and a co-founder of an outpatient-based gastroenterology clinic, GI Health Centre in Burlington, Ontario, since 2012. She is a member of the OAG Board of Directors and serves as its current President. Dr. Ching is also the current Chair of the OMA Section on Gastroenterology.
Natasha Bollegala, Hon BSc., MD, MSc., FRCPC
Staff Gastroenterologist, Women’s College Hospital
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Fellow in the Institute of Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES)
Dr. Natasha Bollegala is a staff gastroenterologist at Women’s College Hospital, and assistant professor in the department of medicine, University of Toronto (UofT). She is a clinician in quality and innovation and completed an Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) fellowship at Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, an MSc in clinical epidemiology and healthcare research at UofT in 2016, the Eliot Phillipson Clinician Scientist Training Program and the Clinician Investigator Program at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Bollegala conducts research with a particular focus on pediatric to adult transition of care and is co-principal investigator for the national transition arm of the Promoting Access to Care in IBD (PACE) quality improvement program of Crohn’s and Colitis Canada (CCC). She co-chairs the Canadian IBD Transition Network (CITE). She has published and presented on the topic of gender in gastroenterology. She is co-chair of the Innovations sub-committee for the Quality Affairs Committee of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology (CAG). She serves as Treasurer for the Ontario Association of Gastroenterology (OAG).