Congratulations to our colleagues Dr. Reka Gustafson and Dr. Brian O’Connor, who received significant public health awards this past week at the Health Officers’ Council of BC.
Reka is pictured receiving her award from Dr. Evan Adam, Deputy Provincial Health Officer, Ministry of Health.
Reka received the Provincial Health Officer’s Award for Excellence in Public Health for “exemplary contributions to the BC Communicable Disease Policy Advisory Committee and work on Seek and Treat to optimally prevent AIDS”. Thanks to the great work by Reka and the PHC/VCH STOP team, this successful pilot has now become a provincial program.
And Dr. Brian O’Connor received the University of British Columbia George Elliot Award for lifetime contribution to public health, in recognition not only of his more than 20 years of public health leadership on
Brian O’Connor (left) is pictured receiving his award from Dr. David Patrick, who is Director of the School of Population and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia.
the North Shore, but also for his provincial and national contributions in population health, including advancing work on the social determinants of health, poverty reduction and early childhood development. Brian is responsible for the establishment of the Population Health team in VCH, and was one of the founding faculty members at the School of Public Health at Simon Fraser University. Congratulations to Brian for a lifetime of public health achievements.