James Dickinson

James Dickinson is a Professor in Family Medicine, who maintains a clinical teaching role. His original degree was from Queensland in Australia, then he did postgraduate training at McMaster and fellowship at McGill. After returning to Australia, his PhD at the University of Newcastle was on Preventive Activities in General Practice. He worked in many roles in Australia including in rural areas, in the Health Department, and in academia. From 1997 he worked in Hong Kong, until returning to Calgary in 2002.

He works to apply Evidence–Based Medicine in Family Medicine, especially in screening. He has been a member of provincial and national policy committees to change cervical and other cancer screening. From 2009-2016 he has been a member of the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care, writing guidelines for prevention based on evidence. He also runs the Alberta community influenza surveillance system (the TARRANT program) that collaborates with other provinces to measure vaccine effectiveness.

He teaches and researches in the fields of prevention and screening, prescribing, rural medical workforce, and health care policy. In doing so, he uses whatever methods are appropriate to answer the question: from epidemiological data and records analysis, to surveys or qualitative approaches.