Louise

Patient Partner

Louise trained as a lawyer and, through personal and professional experience, has become an in demand health policy consultant and advocate, contributing to improvements in the care for people with HIV for about 25 years. She became involved in research and policy development as a patient after her HIV diagnosis in the 1990s, when there were no effective treatment choices for HIV/AIDS patients. Louise works with federal and provincial governments, community organizations and other advocates to improve patient access to HIV treatments and increase access to liver transplants for this group when needed. Louise is also actively involved as a health and policy advocate and consultant for various organizations in the areas of women’s health and cancer. She believes that building trusting relationships between researchers and patients/caregivers is key to creating effective partnerships in research, and that a successful partnership is where both partners have a positive experience in working together to move the research forward.

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• Learning From Others – Louise
  Interacting with various stakeholders can mean an exciting exchange of ideas and fun, says Louise
• Measuring Impact of Partnership – Louise
  Louise discusses how she would determine when a partnership was successful
• Diversity – Louise
  When designing clinical trials, Louise feels that researchers should engage more patient groups
• Motivations – Louise
  As an advocate for quicker access to HIV treatments by shortening research trials, Louise became involved in research as a patient partner
• Developing partnerships – Louise
  Louise flagged that some people might not want others to know about their involvement in research