Shannon Poyntz, NP-PHC, MN 

Shannon Poyntz is a Nurse Practitioner working in the Supportive Care Clinic at North York General Hospital providing palliative and supportive care for patients living with advanced heart, lung and neurodegenerative diseases.

Shannon has been working in the nursing field for over 20yrs, 17 of which as a Nurse Practitioner. Shannon’s experience in palliative care includes provision in the community, hospital and long term care.

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Brenda Albuquerque-Boutilier, H.Ba, CPA 

Brenda is a Patient Experience Partner (PXP) at North York General Hospital. Over the past 10 years, she has focused her volunteer efforts primarily in the area of supportive and palliative care. As a Lived Experience Advisor, Brenda participated in the development of Health Quality Ontario’s Quality Standard for Palliative care. Brenda felt compelled to volunteer as a PXP after witnessing the benefits to her dad of early palliative supports and recognizing that North York General Hospital’s Supportive Cardiology Program, a pilot at the time, was one of few in the province. Her mom is now supported by NYGH’s Supportive Care team and the Heart Function Clinic. Brenda will be joining Shannon Poyntz in discussing early identification of those with heart disease that would benefit from an introduction to palliative care. 

Morgan Krauter, MN-NP (Adult), DN(C), CCCN(C)  

Morgan is an experienced nurse practitioner within hospital and community-based heart failure care. She is currently working as the lead Nurse Practitioner at the Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH). Morgan is nearing the completion of her Doctor of Nursing degree through the University of Toronto, with a thesis focusing on the home administration of intravenous furosemide for patients with heart failure. This interest was heavily influenced by her advanced clinical practice (ACP) fellowship in palliative care completed through the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario’s (RNAO). Morgan is passionate about innovative home-based and community care interventions for advanced heart failure management.

Morgan will be discussing the transitional period and optimizing management of symptoms of heart disease.

Dr. Anwar Parbtani, PhD, MD, CCFP, FCFP, LM 

Anwar Parbtani was born and lived in Uganda, East Africa until the age of 17. On completing high school, he went to Poona University, India from where he obtained his BSc (Hons) degree. He came to England in 1972 as a refugee from Uganda. He completed post-graduate studies in Genetics at Edinburgh University in Scotland and PhD at the University of London, England. He came to Canada in 1981 as a Canadian Heart Foundation fellow at McMaster Univ. He was a career scientist at Western Univ from 1984 to 1998. He has published more than 150 articles including papers, book chapters and abstracts. At the age of 48, he changed his career from science to medicine. He is currently a contract family physician at BCFHT and a member of the Barrie community palliative care group. He is Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto and FMTU-RVH. He is codirector of residents’ research and evidence-based medicine program at FMTU-RVH and co-chair of RVH Research Ethics Board. Anwar’s notable awards include “Shram Dam (“donation of labor”) from Poona District in India, 125th Canada Birthday Achievement Award (for work with youth), the Award of Excellence in Research Mentorship from the DFCM, University of Toronto and the Award of Excellence from the Canadian College of Family Physicians. His current practice focus is community palliative care service, and his passion is teaching and research; more recently studying, researching and promoting role of culture, faith and spirituality in palliative care.