Sam Sheps

Dr. Sheps has been an integral part of the Department of Healthcare and Epidemiology (HCE) since 1981, initially joining part-time as an Assistant Professor. By 1984, he assumed a full-time Assistant Professor role and advanced to Associate Professorship in 1987, ultimately attaining the position of full professorship in 1992. Dr. Sheps earned his MD from Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, completed his residency training in pediatrics at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at McGill University where he obtained an MSc in epidemiology, and spent a year at the London School of Economics in the Department of Social Planning and Administration.

His contributions extended beyond teaching; from August 1989 to August 2000, Dr. Sheps served as the Head of HCE. He played a pivotal role in shaping academic programs, having taught the basic epidemiology course HCEP from 1984 to 2000. Furthermore, he initiated a proposal for a PhD program at HCE and served as the Director of the MSc/PhD program from 1991 to 1999 and again from 2009 to 2015.

Dr. Sheps obtained a Canadian Health Services Research Foundation grant, establishing The Western Regional Training Centre for Health Service Research as part of a national program supporting an interdisciplinary group of MSc and PhD students. A key feature of the program was embedding graduate students in healthcare settings to provide practical research experiences.

Dr. Sheps’ research focused on surgical and health service wait times, adverse medical events, measuring quality of care, and trends in the use of care by the elderly in British Columbia. He was also the principal investigator on a Health Canada-funded project assessing approaches to governance and safety in non-health industries. He co-authored results from the Canadian National Adverse Events Study, published on acute care utilization and the impact of hospital downsizing, and served as a reviewer for numerous journals (CMAJ, CJPH, Social Science in Medicine, JAMA). 

In addition to these administrative and academic roles, Dr. Sheps was actively involved in research and scholarly activities. Dr. Sheps has also served as a reviewer, Scientific Officer, and Chair of numerous CIHR review committees, augmenting his contributions to the academic and research community.