James Orbinski, Faculty Associate, 2006-
Associate Professor of Medicine and Political Science, University of Toronto. Research scientist and clinician at St. Michael's Hospital at the University of Toronto (2004).
His research interests focus on medicine and humanitarianism; the emerging discipline of global health; and equitable access to health care and health care technologies. Dr. Orbinski is part of a team of scholars at the University of Toronto that is developing a multidisciplinary PhD training program in Global Health.
A medical doctor with extensive field experience with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Professor Orbinski was elected international president of the organization from 1998 to 2001, and launched its global Access to Essential Medicines Campaign in 1999. In 1999 he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to MSF for its pioneering approach to medical humanitarianism, and most especially, its commitment to witnessing. Dr. Orbinski has represented MSF in numerous humanitarian emergencies and on critical humanitarian issues in the Sudan, Kosovo and numerous other countries. He has also represented MSF at the UN Security Council, in many national parliaments, for example, the WHO, and the UNHCR. Dr. Orbinski worked as MSF’s Head of Mission in Goma, Zaire in 1996 during the refugee crisis. He was MSF’s Head of Mission in Kigali during the Rwandan genocide of 1994, and MSF’s medical co-ordinator in Jalalabad, Afghanistan in the winter of 1994. He was MSF's medical co-ordinator in Baidoa, Somalia during the civil war and famine of 1992-1993. Dr. Orbinski’s first MSF mission was in Peru in 1992.
From 2001 to 2003 he became chair of MSF' s Neglected Diseases Working Group that created the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), a global not-for-profit drug development enterprise that develops drugs and other health technologies for diseases largely neglected by profit driven research and development companies.
Orbinski received his MD degree from McMaster University in 1990, and Masters in International Relations form the University of Toronto. He has held a Medical Research Council of Canada fellowship to study paediatric HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa. He has also worked as an international health consultant for the Canadian Public Health Association in Zambia, and for Street Kids International in Brazil. He has since started Dignitas International, a hybrid academic NGO focused on community based care, prevention and treatment for people living with HIV in the developing world. He was a founding board member of the Global Alliance for Tuberculosis Drug Development, (GATB) and is an advisory board member of Engineers Without Borders. He is a founding board member of the Steven Lewis Foundation, is board chair of War Child Canada, and a board member of Canadian Doctors for Medicare. Phone: (416) 946-8920
Fax: (416) 946-8915
Email: james.orbinski@utoronto.ca
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