Page 2 of 4: Message from the President and CEO: Dr. Thomas Parker announces retiring from his executive role

Please join us in extending our best wishes to Dr. Thomas Parker, Executive Vice-President (EVP), Clinical and Chief Medical Officer (CMO) at Unity Health Toronto, who has announced retiring from his executive role on April 5, 2024. After a sabbatical, he will continue as a clinical Cardiologist at St. Michael’s Hospital.

Tom served as Chief Resident in Cardiology at St. Michael’s in 1988. After tenures at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, and at University Health Network in Toronto, he was recruited back to St. Michael’s in 2003 as Head of the Division of Cardiology and the inaugural Brazilian Ball Chair in Cardiology Research – positions he held until 2010. In 2010, he was appointed Physician-in-Chief and Squires-Chalmers professor in the Department of Medicine at St. Michael’s. Tom also served as Chair of the Medical Advisory Committee and was a member of the Joint Board Steering Committee during the integration of Providence Healthcare, St. Joseph’s Health Centre and St. Michael’s. He has served in his current role as EVP and CMO since 2018.

Tom is an internationally recognized clinician scientist and was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada for 34 consecutive years. His research accomplishments are recognized with the Fellowship in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and as a Full Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto (UofT). A respected educator, he also served as the Program Director of Adult Cardiology at UofT and established a third year of core training in Cardiology. He provided national leadership in his specialty as a member of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society Council and served as Chair of the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress, the largest annual meeting for cardiovascular specialists in the country. Among his legacies at Unity Health, he is proud of the large number of academic staff physicians he recruited to Cardiology and Medicine at St. Michael’s and having served as chair of Unity Health’s Incident Management Team during the pandemic.

In my time as President and CEO at Unity Health, Tom has been a trusted advisor to myself, the executive team, Medical Advisory Committee, and the Board of Directors. His dedication and commitment to the network has been unwavering, especially over the past few years leading our clinical teams through some of the toughest times during the pandemic, and supporting our three sites coming together. My sincere gratitude goes to Tom for his significant contributions to the network as a member of our executive team. He has left a strong and lasting impact that will benefit the patients and families we serve for years to come.

We will share more information in the coming weeks on next steps for recruitment and timing. In the meantime, I want to say congratulations to Tom, and on behalf of the entire executive team, we look forward to celebrating his career and accomplishments in months ahead.

With best regards,

Tim Rutledge
President and CEO
Unity Health Toronto