New Staff Profiles
The Department of Medicine is delighted to welcome Dr. Nazik Hammad, Hematology/Oncology, Dr. Ann Young, Nephrology, and Dr. Natalia Calo, Gastroenterology, to the active staff!
Dr. Nazik Hammad: Nazik joined the Division of Hematology/Oncology as a Clinician Educator and Full Professor as of April 1, 2023. Nazik received her MBBS from the University of Khartoum, Sudan, followed by an MSc in Immunology from the University of Toronto. Her internal medicine residency took place at Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan. She was a clinical fellow in Infectious Diseases at the National Institute of Allergy, Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland. Nazik then completed a fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan. She also has a Master of Education in Health Professions (MEHP) from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.
Since July 2009, Dr. Hammad has been on staff at the Cancer Centre of Southeastern Ontario, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario as a Medical Oncologist, where she has risen through the ranks to Full Professor. While at Queen’s, she was the program director in Medical Oncology from 2014 to 2019 and was a member of the Royal College Medical Oncology Subspecialty Committee during this time. She led the Program through a successful accreditation process. While Program Director, she also led the transition to Competency Based Medical Education in Medical Oncology. She had held several national roles including as Head of the Royal College Medical Oncology Subspecialty Committee Competence by Design Evaluation Subgroup.
On the international front, Nazik has many accomplishments in her work in Global Oncology. She is a co-founding member of the Canadian Global Oncology Network and sits on the executive committee for Queen’s Global Oncology. She was previous Director of Global Health for the Faculty of Health Sciences at Queen’s. She held international leadership roles including as Co-Chair of the African Organization for Research and Training in Cancer (AORTIC) Education and Training Committee, and VP for AORTIC North America. She has given many presentations in Global Health around the world, has been a Visiting Professor in Zambia, Kenya, and Ghana amongst others, and has a long list of publications relating to Global Oncology. Her expertise has been recognized through international awards such as receiving a Harvard Medical School Global Health Catalyst (GHC) Distinguished Leader Award for her role in oncology education in Africa in 2019. Other research and academic interests include value-based cancer care, global and local inequities and disparities in cancer, global health and global oncology, and women as health care professionals. Together with colleagues in Africa she led the first Choosing Wisely Africa initiative. She is a co-author in the Lancet Oncology commission for Cancer in Sub-Saharan Africa which is was published in 2022 and is a current commissioner in the Lancet Commission on Women and Cancer which is expected to be published in the fall of this year. She is currently co-chair of the Black Physicians Association of Ontario’s (BPAO) Network for Advancing Black Medical Learners in Ontario (N-ABL).”
Dr. Ann Young: Ann is joining the Division of Nephrology as a Clinician Investigator and Assistant Professor as of April 1, 2023. Ann completed a PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Western University, followed by her MD, Internal Medicine residency and Nephrology fellowship at the University of Toronto. She has just completed a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship in the Clinician Investigator Program. Many of you may know Ann as she has held a clinical associate-term appointment at St. Michael’s Hospital since 2020. Ann will be clinically focused on improving health services delivery for patients with chronic kidney disease, building on work she did during her PhD and post-doctoral fellowship. Ann received CIHR and KRESCENT funding to complete her post-doctoral fellowship in which she developed an approach to use ICES data to find individuals at high risk of kidney failure who have not been seen by a nephrologist, and will contact them to get them connected with care through a new KidneyCare Outreach program. This unique approach will facilitate her future research goals of developing, implementing and evaluating strategies to optimize care for these patients.
Outside of work, Ann keeps busy with her husband, Tak, and two young kids, Theo and Lily.
Dr. Natalia Calo: Dr. Natalia C. Calo is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto and a therapeutic endoscopist at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, where her clinical focus is the care of patients with pancreaticobiliary disease. Dr. Calo completed her medical education at the Universidad de Buenos Aires in 2010, where she graduated with honors. She trained in adult gastroenterology at the Italian Hospital of Buenos Aires. In 2016, she moved to Canada where she completed a combined clinical research fellowship at McMaster University and the Farncombe Family Digestive Health Research Institute. She also completed a Master's in Health Research Methodology with a focus on Clinical Epidemiology at McMaster University. Subsequently, she completed a two-year fellowship in Advanced Therapeutic Endoscopy at St. Michael's Hospital, University of Toronto, where she also served as the Chief Fellow. Later, she worked as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Ottawa and therapeutic endoscopist at The Ottawa Hospital prior to being recruited by the St. Michael's Hospital group in Toronto.
Dr. Calo's research interests encompass patient-centered outcomes in therapeutic endoscopy, quality improvement in gastrointestinal endoscopy, and the incorporation of new technologies into patient care. In particular, she hopes to expand her research to understand complications of pancreatitis and the risks associated with endoscopy in high-risk patients. Dr. Calo's overall objective is to combine her clinical expertise in advanced therapeutic endoscopy with research and educational activities.