Orbinski, a physician, humanitarian and leading scholar in the field of global health, will receive Camp Kanawana’s “Pip” award on Wednesday.
Dr. James Orbinski, a physician, humanitarian and leading scholar in the field of global health, is the recipient of this year’s Camp YMCA Kanawana Pip Award. The award was established in 2007 to recognize contributions of distinguished Kanawana alumni; he is its 15th recipient.
Orbinski, who grew up in Montreal, was a counsellor at Kanawana during the 1970s. After earning his medical degree in 1990 from McMaster University, he studied pediatric HIV in sub-Saharan Africa on a Medical Research Council of Canada fellowship and, in 1991, began to work internationally with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
He was MSF medical coordinator in Baidoa, Somalia, during the civil war and famine of 1992–93, and in Jalalabad, Afghanistan in winter 1994. He was MSF head of mission in Kigali during the Rwandan genocide of 1994, and in Goma, Zaire, during the 1996-97 refugee crisis.
He was awarded the Meritorious Service Cross, Canada’s highest civilian award, in 1997 for his leadership in Rwanda. In 1998, he earned a masters degree in international relations at the University of Toronto and was elected international president of MSF; in that role, which he held until 2001, he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to MSF in 1999.
In 2004 Orbinski became a research scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto and associate professor of medicine and political science at the University of Toronto. A 2006 paper in British medical journal The Lancet he co-authored, on HIV/AIDS treatment adherence, was recognized as one of the 20 most significant medical research papers in the world that year.
Orbinski’s research focuses on areas including medical humanitarianism, intervention strategies for emerging — and re-emerging — infectious diseases and health impacts of climate change. He is a strong advocate for increasing access to essential medicines for neglected diseases, particularly among vulnerable populations.
The Pip award, which takes the form of a paddle, was established by Andrew Caddell as a memorial to his father, Philip (Pip) Caddell (1913-2004), and to his son James Caddell (1973-2005). Both attended Kanawana.
It will be presented to Orbinski by Caddell Wednesday before campers and staff up at Kanawana, in the the Laurentian community of St-Sauveur. Established in 1894, it is Quebec’s oldest residential summer camp.