Canadian BME Society Meeting

Presentation of New Officers and Awards Winners

Bob Gander, PhD, Saskatoon, SK, President
Robert E. Gander was elected CMBES President at the General Meeting which was held in conjunction with the 27th Canadian Medical and Biological Engineering Conference in Ottawa. In his message, he said: "One of my goals over the next two years is to re-stimulate interest in the CMBES conferences amongst the researchers who are members. The Society gets its strength, in my opinion, from the active participation of the whole range of our membership. I know that I have particularly enjoyed and benefited from sessions and discussions with clinical engineers, as it helps me to keep connected to the end users of our research. Similarly, the exhibits help the academic members to keep up on the latest technologies being used in the hospitals."

Bob has been a member of CMBES since 1975. He served on the Executive board from 1988 to 1992 as Membership Chair, and again from 2000 to the present as Vice-President and now President.

Bob was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta where he received his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering in 1972. He subsequently moved to the University of Toronto to do his MASc and PhD degrees through the Institute of Biomedical Engineering.

In 1980, Bob moved to Fredericton N.B. to work at the Bioengineering Institute, headed at that time by Bob Scott. This work was on myoelectric signal analysis with potential application in the control of upper limb prostheses. Five years later, he moved to the University of Saskatchewan where he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Division of Biomedical Engineering. He continued his work on myoelectric signal analysis, but has also conducted work on instrumentation for various sport activities and on modifications of ultrasound transducers for 3-D imaging. Currently Bob is Assistant Dean, Undergraduate Administration for the College of Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.

Bill Gentles, PhD, PEng, CCE Toronto, ON, Vice-president
Bill Gentles is vice president of BT Medical Technology Consulting. He is the former director of Biomedical Engineering at Sunnybrook & Women's College Health Sciences Centre. He served in that position for 28 years. He was the founding board chair of the Canadian Medical Equipment Protection Plan, a not-for-profit organisation that is owned by its member hospitals. In collaboration with Tony Easty of UHN, he led the development of a "Standard of Practice for Clinical Engineering in Canada". Bill is now leading the implementation of a Peer Review process based on the Standard of Practice. He is the current chair of the Clinical Engineering Society of Ontario. He is a member of the American College of Clinical Engineering, as well as AAMI and IEEE. He has lectured in Taiwan, China, Malaysia, Cuba and Ecuador. He received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Toronto in 1974. Bill is a Registered Professional Engineer, and a Certified Clinical Engineer.

Timothy J. Zakutney, M.H.Sc., P.Eng. Ottawa, ON, Treasurer
Tim completed his Bachelor of Applied Science in Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo in 1994. He worked at the National Research Council of Canada after completing his undergraduate degree. He obtained a Masters in Health Science in Clinical Engineering from the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto in 1997. Following university, Tim worked as Assistant Manager and then Manager of Biomedical Engineering at the Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation in Saint John, New Brunswick. He moved to Ottawa in 2001 to develop a new Biomedical Engineering Services Department at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and is working there still.

Mike Capuano, CBET© Hamilton, ON, Membership
Mike Capuano is the Manager of Biomedical Technology Services at Hamilton Health Sciences (Hamilton, Ontario). He was born in Welland, attended high school there, graduated from Radio College of Canada in Toronto, obtained Ontario certification as an Engineering Technologist, and became a CBET soon after. Mike worked as a BMET for 13 years before accepting biomed management roles in the Hamilton hospitals.

Brian Van Skiver. Peng, Edmonton, AB, Publication
Brian Van Skiver is a professional engineer. He started in this profession after graduating from BCIT in the early 1980's. After 12 years working as a BMET, he went into engineering on a full-time basis at the University of Alberta. After graduating in electrical engineering (co-op), he worked as a Project Engineer.Within 2 years, he found his way back to the medical world as a clinical engineer for the Capital Health Authority in Edmonton, Alberta in 1997. During his time as a BMET, Brian completed programs in industrial instrumentation, power engineering and computer electronics

Society Awards

At the November conference of the Canadian BME Society in Ottawa, key awards recognising certain society members for outstanding achievement were presented. Dr. Carolyn Small was presented a Fellowship award and Peter Bennett the 2002 Outstanding Canadian Biomedical Engineering Technologist award.

Fellow
Carolyn Small, PhD, P.Eng.

Carolyn Small, professor in Mechanical Engineering at Queen's University and former Executive member of the CMBES, was presented a Fellowship award. The Society is fortunate to have members like Carolyn who contribute time and effort for the benefit of all members. In spite of her battle with breast cancer, Carolyn demonstrated tremendous strength and courage to not only show up at the banquet but to also give an inspiring address to her colleagues and young engineers.

Carolyn was elected to the grade of Fellow at the CMBES banquet, which was held at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa on November 23, 2002. She has been a member of the Society for over three decades and served the executive in several capacities including: Treasurer (1990-94), President (1994-96) and Membership Chair (1996-98). Carolyn entered the field of engineering back when very few women even considered it an option to venture into a male dominated profession. Early in her career in 1980, Carolyn was honoured with an Outstanding Young Canadian Biomedical Engineer of the Year. She has since made important contributions towards the development of programs for women at Queen's University and the profession overall. Apart from her research, she has contributed significantly to clinical engineering through teaching and numerous development projects.

I also had the pleasure of presenting the Outstanding BMET award to Peter Bennett, President of Dynamed Healthcare Systems. Aside from being a highly successful entrepreneur, Peter has been very supportive of the biomedical community including CMBES events and awards.

Peter Bennett
President and Founder Dynamed Health Care Systems
2002 Outstanding Canadian Biomedical Engineering Technologist Award

Peter graduated in 1986 as an Applied Science Technologist from the BCIT. He worked as a BMET for several companies until he founded Dynamed Health Care Systems as a broad-based health care technical services company in 1989. Dynamed has acquired several companies since then and continues to grow under Peter's capable leadership. Given the life-critical nature of healthcare, Peter believes it's essential for medical professionals to access a service provider whose people can respond to emergency calls at any hour of the day or night. He believes that Dynamed's superior service and hands-on approach to sales and service is the cornerstone of becoming recognised as Canada's premier provider to hospitals and medical device companies. Peter is a visionary and an excellent role model for the future generation of biomedical professionals.

Peter has a management style of trust with his employees and empathy for his customers. He never hesitates to skip rank and jump right into the melee and make his contribution, often full of humour. Once the long workday is finally over, he heads to the exercise club, doing his last e-mail and phone calls en route. Peter has a true entrepreneurial spirit and runs this very successful company with help from his wife Lesley and 2 children Laura and Adam. He admits this has not been done without sacrifice sometimes putting in extremely long hours when required.

He is very supportive of the biomedical community and has been awarded certificates of appreciation from the BCIT, ASTT and other organisations for his contributions to the industry. Through Dynamed, Peter donated financial awards to the best biomedical student at BCIT at their year-end ceremonies. He not only provides financial support but key learning opportunities. His company has taken on biomedical students and provided them with hands-on training as part of their practicum and has gone on to hire many of them.

Peter has been a member of CMBES for over ten years. Sponsoring the Student Paper Competition is just one of the ways Peter demonstrates his support for the Society. He truly leads by example and is an outstanding role model for our student members who enthusiastically participate in this competition.

Next Conference
Rosaire Mongrain and Olivier Bertrand have already begun work on organising our next conference to be held in Quebec City next year. They have plans for sessions to involve more clinicians, nurses and researchers in the conference. We look forward to seeing more details of the program as the planning progresses.