User:Richard Heinzl/sandbox

Richard Heinzl (b November 18, 1962) is a Canadian physician and founder and first president of the Canadian chapter of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the Nobel Peace Prize wining humanitarian medical organization. His work, travels and concern for global health have taken him to over 75 countries. He is a frequent contributor to the media and a speaker, having delivered nearly 100 keynote addresses to audiences across North America and worldwide. Heinzl’s current work is with innovative healthcare companies.

Early Life and Education:
Born in Hamilton, Ontario to psychologists Rudy and Jane Heinzl, he attended local public schools and began traveling widely, hitchhiking throughout Europe and North America as a teenager. After undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto he attended McMaster University’s innovative Medical School (now Michael G. Degroote School of Medicine) where he was Class President and Foreign Affairs liaison for the Canadian Federation of Medical Students. Aa a medical student he undertook overseas electives including a posting to Uganda in April of 1985 where he met expatriate field workers from Médecins Sans Frontières. He witnessed civil war first hand and saw the world’s first cases of AIDS (called Slim’s Disease at the time). He completed graduate degrees related to global health at Harvard University (Master of Public Health 1990) and the University of Oxford (Master of Science 2000) as an Overseas Research Scholar. He is a board certified Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine. A lifelong lacrosse player, he played for McMaster University, the Harvard Business School and the Oxford Blues.

Global Health and Humanitarianism:
He witnessed the devastation of war as a medical student while in Uganda and was impressed by the work of Médecins Sans Frontières in the field. Upon returning to Canada at the age of 22, he founded McMaster University’s Global Health Committee, now in its 28th year, and immediately began speaking about MSF, organizing efforts to bring the organization to Canada. Working with friends and colleagues and with counterparts predominantly from MSF Holland, he led the establishment of a national MSF movement in Canada (the first outside of Europe) and formed a chapter headquarters in Toronto. He was the first field volunteer to go on mission for MSF Canada, to Cambodia in January 1991. He has also worked as a physician with MSF in Mozambique, Malawi, Turkey and Iraq.

Outside of MSF, he served as an election monitor for the United Nations during the first presidential elections in South Africa in 1994, reported from Haiti during the Aristide regime, investigated the Tsunami response in Banda Aceh, Indonesia and recently conducted a multi-year, community health research collaboration in the Carib Territory in Dominica, West Indies. His memoir, Cambodia Calling, the story of his first year in the field with MSF, is published by Harper Collins.

Current activities and technology:
Noting the tremendous potential of technological change worldwide and seeing how cell phones and the Internet have dramatically transformed non-industrialized societies, Heinzl has been engaged with several healthcare and technology ventures. He is medical director to several corporations including the Ingle Group of companies, a medical consultant to Advica Health and the Global Medical Director for WorldCare Inc., the Boston-based, Harvard-affiliated telemedicine company. He is a member of the Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research and the Telemedicine Advisory Group at MSF Canada. Previously he was co-founder and CEO of the dot com era startup Medispecialist.com Corp., a virtual medical second opinion service, and from 2001 - 2003 was CEO of CardioView Inc., a Web-based medical imaging company in the field of cardiology. He currently lives in Oakville, Ontario with his wife Carrie Heilbron, a clinical psychologist, and their two sons Ryan and Carson.

Recognition:
In 1993 Heinzl received an Overseas Research Scholarship to pursue research on global health at University College, University of Oxford. In that year he was inducted into the McMaster University Alumni Gallery and in 2000 received an Honorary Doctorate (LLD) from McMaster University, the university’s highest honour. In 1995 he won a YMCA Peace Medal and was named one of 100 Canadians in the Penguin book “People Who make a Difference”. In 2000 he received Canada’s Top 40 under 40 Award, (awarded in 1999) and in 2005 his fellow Top 40 under 40 recipients voted him “Best of the Best” in the category of contributions to community. Earlier in his career in 1992 while working with MSF he was the first non-national recipient of a Citation from the Provincial Government of Banteay-Meanchey, Cambodia. In 1999 MSF was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Selected Media and Public Presentations:
Convocation addresses: University of Minnesota Medical School 2009, McMaster University Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine 2010, West Virginia University Health Sciences 2010. Verge Magazine http://www.vergemagazine.com/travel-intelligence/why-we-travel/178-dreaming-up-a-borderless-world.html Idaho http://www.boiseweekly.com/boise/richard-heinzl/Content?oid=3086950 Dispatches, MSF Canada Magazine, August 2014   http://www.msf.ca/en/article/dispatches-msf-canadas-early-beginnings-started-idea-making-difference WorldCare White Paper http://www.worldcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/An-Institutional-Approach-to-Medical-Second-Opinions-White-Paper.pdf The Globe and Mail, April 1993 “More Like Somalia than a Caribbean Paradise” PDF

Weblinks:
MSF Canada http://www.msf.ca

Lavin Agency http://www.thelavinagency.com/search/?search=richard+heinzl

Harper Collins http://www.harpercollins.com/9781443429702/cambodia-calling

Keynotes.org http://www.keynotes.org/speaker/richardheinzl Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research http://www.ccghr.ca/blog/press-release-2nd-undergraduate-global-health-forum/ McMaster University Notable Alumni http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_McMaster_University_people

Top 40 under 40 http://www.canadastop40under40.com

WorldCare Inc. http://www.worldcare.com/about-us/medical-directors/