You can sense a definite theme in the biographies of our team. We all love SCBP AND we love to travel the world! This past year and in 2012 we have and will be traveling to: Chile (Joan), Cambodia, Laos and Kenya (Lee), Mexico (Linda), NYC (Jalana), Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Kenya (Kiran), California, Texas, Kenya (Lori), Europe, Australia, South Africa (Liz), Jamaica, Peru (Mandy), back country skiing (Lena), Mexico (Min). We cannot all go at once so we carefully coordinate our time off and support each other to travel. When we can, we travel together.
Linda Knox - Registered Midwife
Linda is a registered midwife with over 25 years experience caring for women and their families throughout the childbearing cycle. She has contributed politically over many years to the establishment of midwifery as a regulated profession in BC. She was a partner, with Lee, in the first community based midwifery practice in Vancouver and is a Clinical Assistant Professor for the Division of Midwifery in the Department of Family Practice at UBC. She is currently the Acting Head of the Department of Midwifery at BC Women's hospital and St. Paul's hospital. She has been a member of the SCBP team since its inception and loves the multi-disciplinary approach to care. She has 3 grown children, Jasmine, Tanya and Tyson, two very cute grandsons and an energetic Schnauzer! Linda enjoys training in Karate and loves to travel the world.
Kiran Nayar - Family Physician
Kiran is a family physician originally from Montreal. She grew up doing hospital rounds with her mother, a family physician. She followed in her footsteps and completed her medical degree at McGill University in Montreal at the tender age of 23. Since graduating, she has worked throughout rural BC and the Canadian Arctic. After years in the North, she is very excited to settle in Vancouver and join the dynamic and truly collaborative SCBP team of care givers. We all agree: Kiran is a perfect fit for our team. She thoroughly enjoys teaching our midwifery, nursing and medical students and loves providing maternity care. She has a special interest in adolescent and aboriginal health care. Kiran speaks French and is working on her Hindi. She loves to cook, dance, travel and she is currently learning (read: humbly trying) to surf.
Amanda Reid – Registered Midwife
Mandy started exploring midwifery in West Africa in her early twenties and knew it was the path for her when she witnessed her first birth. She did her nursing training at UBC and became an RN in 2005. She then trained as a midwife at a birth centre in Bali, Indonesia, where she returned 3 times to deepen her knowledge of midwifery. She graduated from Ryerson University's International Midwifery Pre-Registration program in 2008 and became licensed to practice midwifery in Canada. She practiced for one year in rural Ontario caring for primarily Amish and Mennonite families, attending primarily home births in this community. Just prior to joining SCBP in August 2010, she volunteered as a midwife in Haiti, caring for people affected by the earthquake. She speaks French, some Indonesian and is currently learning Spanish. Like the rest of the SCBP team, she is an avid traveler, loves music, and spends her spare time doing yoga or making art.
Joan Robillard - Family Physician, SCBP Education Coordinator
Joan is a family physician originally from Montreal. She completed her medical school education at the University of Manitoba in 1985, and practiced in rural Quebec for 7 years prior to moving to Vancouver in 1993. She enjoys teaching and holds a Clinical Associate Professorship at UBC. She has been active in the women’s movement and has provided maternity care for women from all walks of life for more than twenty years. She has been a member of the SCBP team since its inception and coordinates all of our midwifery, medical and nursing student placements. Joan lives with her identical twin sister Claire. Her partner Judith passed away in 2011, and Judith’s daughter, Carolina, the mother of Joan’s two gorgeous granddaughters, Stella and Paloma, has been a doula in our program. Joan speaks French and a little Spanish, sings in a choir and loves to travel the world.
Elizabeth Ryan - Registered Midwife
Liz is the eldest of six children and was born on a sheep station in the outback of Australia, where she first attended births (animals) in natural settings. Liz has been a midwife for over 25 years and a nurse for longer than she can remember. She has worked in a variety of settings, including BC Women's Hospital in their midwifery pilot project prior to the registration of midwifery in B.C. in 1998, where she was Department Head of Midwifery for several years after registration of midwifery. She passed the torch to Lee! She is a Clinical Associate Professor for Division of Midwifery in the Department of Family Practice at UBC and was faculty in the program, along with Lee, for several years. She is deeply committed to enhancing our learners experience at SCBP. Liz tried to retire in 2008 from her private midwifery practice in False Creek. The SCBP team gave her a two week grace period before pouncing and asking her to join our team! She was already missing being with the families during their journey through pregnancy and birth and is very happy to be part of the unique practice and wonderfully diverse nature of SCBP. Liz has one daughter, Kylie, and two gorgeous grandsons, plus a husband, Al, and four cats. Her hobbies include Masters swimming, biking, pilates, and seriously and methodically traveling the world.
Lena Rowat - Registered Midwife
Born and raised in Vancouver, Lena was exposed to birth from an early age with her mother who practiced obstetrics as a family doctor. After receiving her Bachelor of Arts from Smith College in the US, she chose to pursue a youthful career of mountain adventure - teaching skiing, planting trees, and leading mountain expedition. During this time she accomplished her goal to ski through the wilderness from Vancouver to the Yukon, to climb Canada’s highest peak. After a few months spent in medical school she realized her true calling was midwifery. She was fortunate to attend births in a hospital in Ethiopia, and while completing her midwifery training in Texas, where she worked largely with migrant Mexican families, she learned of the creation of SCBP and knew that this was where she wanted to practice upon returning to Vancouver. After practicing in Ontario, this finally became reality in the spring of 2009. Lena feels a great pride and joy to be part of the innovative and excellent team and program that we have here at SCBP. Lena still loves to ski, climb and spend time in the mountains, both here in BC and around the world.
Lee Saxell - Registered Midwife, SCBP Medical Director
Lee trained as a midwife in the early 1980s, completed a Masters program in Midwifery Research in the UK in 1994, and has been a practicing midwife for over 30 years. She is currently the Program Leader at BC Women's Hospital of a multi-disciplinary Cesarean Task Force, which is promoting normal birth. She is a Clinical Associate Professor for the Division of Midwifery in the Department of Family Practice at UBC, and was faculty in the program, along with Liz, for several years. She was formerly the Head of Midwifery at BC Women's and St Paul's hospitals; in 2009 this torch was passed to Linda! She is the founding visionary member, along with Dr. Sue Harris, of the South Community Birth Program and is our Medical Director. She is a native of Vancouver and has two grown children, Maya and Joel, and one adorable dog, Lulu. Her passion is traveling the world.
Locum Extraordinaire - Susie Schulz, Registered Midwife
After several years working as a locum for SCBP (filling in for team members when they are away), Susie joined the SCBP team full time in January 2012. As an expert with 20 years of experience in home birth, she is the Director of the SCBP Home Birth Team. Her philosophy of care and style of practice are completely compatible with our own. As well as working in the Lower Mainland, Susie has also practiced in the Kootenays and the Okanagan. We are thrilled that Susie has joined us full time! She has 3 children; Noah 21, Keira 16, and Maya 5. Susie is a native of North Vancouver, loves to travel, and she still finds time to do yoga!
Paula Hartley - 4th Year Student from the UBC Midwifery Program
I am so pleased to be joining the team of wonderful midwives, physicians, nurses and doulas at the South Community Birth Program from, September 2011 until April 2012 when I graduate. I attended births with the team this summer and loved the program so much I asked to continue training with the team for this next year. I would like to sincerely thank you for the opportunity to participate in your care and say how excited I am to work with the team and all of the families at SCBP.
I believe that women come from diverse backgrounds and that there is no blanket approach to caring for families. I support the right of a woman to define what family means to her according to her own values. I believe that pregnancy, birth, and family-building holds tremendous potential for empowerment, and that we, as care providers, can positively impact this process.
I look forward to meeting the families at the South Community Birth Program and joining you during this transformative time - in both of ours lives!
Lori received her Masters degree in nursing in 1995, certification as a Lactation Consultant in 2011. Prior to joining SCBP, she worked in several hospital Newborn Intensive Care Units, caring for sick babies and their families. Up until joining SCBP in 2008, she was faculty at the BC Institute of Technology, training nurses to care for sick babies. In her current role as the SCBP team leader of nursing, she provides breastfeeding and postpartum care, both in group sessions and in her postpartum clinics. As well as co-facilitating Connecting Pregnancy groups, Lori holds a postpartum drop-in group for SCBP clients every Wednesday afternoon from 12 to 2pm. Lori speaks Spanish and, like everyone else at SCBP, loves to travel. Lori and her husband, Sam, dropped everything a few years back and travelled and lived in Mexico for 2 years with their children Max (12), and Stella (10).
Jalana has been working with childbearing families as a doula since 1983. She is certified as a doula and Approved Birth Doula Trainer by DONA International. From 2000 to 2009, she was the Western Canada Director on DONA's International Board of Directors. Jalana is also a Certified Lamaze Childbirth Educator and has taught prenatal classes in the Vancouver area since 1989. Jalana has been with SCBP since the inception and has trained our doulas, designed the doula program and continues to be the Mentor/Mother to all the doulas in our program. Jalana participates in the labour and delivery Centering Pregnancy sessions and teaches our Preparation for Birth workshops. She is the mother of one young man, Kye, two young women, Teil and Sharai, and she has a very spoiled Golden Lab, Sadie the Wonder Dog! She lives in Langley with her husband, Chris, and loves her work with the SCBP. She loves travel and photographing her adventures!
Sue was a founding visionary member of the SCBP and was passionately devoted to collaborative care, the Centering Pregnancy model, and our doula program. She was well known for one of her sayings, "We are on to something here!" Beside being a very skilled doctor and accoucheur, you could always count on Sue to do the right thing. She was diagnosed with cancer in 2007 and died in May 2009. Like everything Sue did in her life she did her dying well: she comforted all of her loved ones and came to peace with her death. Her son, Jonathon, is an emergency room doctor, and her daughter, Amy, has recently completed a degree in midwifery and was a student at SCBP in 2008.
Kerry joined SCBP in 2005 and during her time with us she gave birth to two babies of her own, Claire and Sarah Grace. Kerry also worked at the Bridge Clinic one day a week, providing medical care to new immigrant and refugee families. She loved providing maternity care in a collaborative model and made sure she had a doula both times she gave birth! Tragedy struck us through the heart on November 29, 2009, when Kerry and Sarah Grace were both killed in a seaplane crash returning from our annual SCBP retreat on Mayne Island. We remain close family with her husband, Patrick, and her daughter, Claire. We have also established an education fund for Claire. This picture was taken of the two of them at our retreat.