Dr. David Hawkins

In 1987 Dr. David Hawkins was appointed dean of medicine and served in this position until August 1995. From 1995 to 2005 he was executive director of the Ottawa-based Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC). Since 2006 he has been interim vice-president for Medical and Scientific Affairs of The Arthritis Society of Canada and in 2007 he became chair of the Board of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

David Hawkins was born in St. John's, NL and was awarded his MD by Dalhousie University. Following residency in internal medicine at Dalhousie and McGill University and a fellowship at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla CA, he returned to McGill as a Medical Research Council (MRC) Scholar, professor of medicine and director of the Division of Rheumatology at the Montreal General Hospital. 

Dr. Hawkins has extensive experience in the accreditation of programs of medical education at all levels: undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing professional development. He was permanent secretary of the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools and a member of The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (U.S.A.) from 1995 to 2006. Currently he serves on the Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Medicine and the Advisory Committee, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, the United Arab Emirates University. His accreditation activities have taken him to Argentina, Chile, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Ireland, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Montserrat, many medical schools in the United States and all Canadian schools.

In 1991 he was appointed vice-president of the Medical Research Council and filled the role of president on an interim basis. He has been president of the Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation, the AFMC, the Canadian Association of Professors of Medicine (CAPM), a governor of the American College of Physicians (ACP), and senior editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. He has served on the boards of TAS, the National Council on Bioethics in Human Research, and the National Cancer Institute of Canada. In 1993 the MRC and Memorial University jointly endowed The Annual David Hawkins Lectureship in Health Sciences Research. He was Alumnus of the Year of the Dalhousie Medical Alumni Association in 1995 and in 2002 he received the Ronald V. Christie Award of the CAPM. In 2005, the Canadian Rheumatology Association named Dr. Hawkins Distinguished Rheumatologist of the Year and he was elected to fellowship in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
 

The author of more than 100 scientific publications, he is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, the American College of Rheumatology, an adjunct professor of Paediatrics at the University of Ottawa, and consultant rheumatologist at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario.