Alberta Medical Association inducts new president and welcomes newly installed Canadian Medical Association president

EDMONTON, Alberta, Sept. 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Alberta Medical Association (AMA) will install its president for 2017-18 on Saturday, September 16, during its Annual General Meeting and Representative Forum at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel West Edmonton. The AMA president serves a one-year term, in addition to one year each as president-elect and immediate past president.

Dr. Neil D.J. Cooper, a pediatrician in Calgary, will officially assume the role of AMA president at the end of the Representative Forum meeting on Saturday afternoon.

Dr. Cooper obtained his medical degree from the University of Calgary in 1990 and completed a pediatric residency at the Alberta Children’s Hospital in 1994. He received a Diploma in Sports Medicine in 2007. Since 1995, Dr. Cooper has had a diverse pediatric practice. He has a general pediatric consulting practice in Calgary and he is also a consultant pediatrician with Matrix MSK Sports Medicine Clinic, the Sheldon Kennedy Child Advocacy Centre – Child Abuse Service and the Alberta Children’s Hospital. Dr. Cooper also teaches as a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Calgary.

For 25 years Dr. Cooper has been Calgary Chapter Medical Director and Organizer of Dreams Take Flight, taking 150 children to Disneyland every fall. He has also been involved with Samaritan’s Purse International Relief where he’s been team physician on mostly youth teams travelling to Nicaragua, Honduras, Argentina and most recently Cambodia.

Dr. Cooper began activities with the AMA in 1996 with the Section of Pediatrics, serving as its fees representative, then president and past president. For nine years he was a member and co-chair of the AMA Compensation Committee. He currently sits on the AMA Board of Directors (since 2012) and is a Representative Forum delegate (since 2006). In his role as president, Dr. Cooper will continue as a member of the Board and will serve on various internal and external committees.

During the Annual General Meeting, current AMA President Dr. Padraic Carr will reflect on some of the highlights of his year as president and comment on the events and issues that have defined his term.

Dr. Carr will also officially welcome to Alberta the Canadian Medical Association’s (CMA’s) 150th President, Dr. Laurent Marcoux. Dr. Marcoux became CMA president in August at the CMA’s Annual General Meeting, held this year in Quebec City.

Dr. Laurent Marcoux has worked in the field of medicine for over 40 years. After graduating from the Université Laval in 1973, Dr. Marcoux worked in many different areas of medicine, but always with the same goal in mind – to improve patients’ access to care. In 1976, he founded the Centre Médical Saint-Denis on the south shore of Montreal, a rural primary and secondary care clinic where he practiced local medicine. He managed the centre for 32 years. Dr. Marcoux also practiced general medicine in a short-term institution in Saint-Hyacinthe, and also found the time to complete a master’s degree in health administration at the Université de Montréal in 2000.

His interest in health care reform led him, at the start of the new millennium, to several important roles, including: head of the regional general medicine department in Montérégie; member of the Conseil Médical du Québec and of different roundtables on access to family medicine; director of professional services and medical affairs at the Centre de santé et de services sociaux Jardins-Roussillon in Châteauguay; and president of the Québec Medical Association (2013-15).

The health of First Nations communities is one of Dr. Marcoux’s primary concerns. From 2012 to 2016, he was the director of medical affairs and services of the Cree Board of Health and Social Services of James Bay in the Cree territory of James Bay. Increasing the use of telemedicine to improve access to care was at the heart of his mandate.

His dedication to his patients and to his field has not gone unnoticed, with the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec naming him general practitioner of the year in 2005.

At the Lunch with the CMA President on Saturday, Dr. Marcoux will officially install Dr. Cooper as the AMA president, address RF delegates and present the CMA Honorary Membership awards to Alberta physicians.

The Representative Forum is the governing body of the AMA. It includes representatives of all sectors of the profession – specialty sections, zones, students, residents, past presidents and deans of medicine. The RF meets at least twice a year to establish policy and set direction.

For more information, or to request an interview, please contact:

Shannon Rupnarain
Assistant Executive Director, Public Affairs
Alberta Medical Association
Cell: 780.907.9003
Email: media@albertadoctors.org