Brief Biography

Dr. Natasha Saunders is a Clinician-Investigator in the Division of Paediatric Medicine at The Hospital for Sick Children. She is an Assistant Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto and a health services researcher at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. She received two undergraduate degrees at Queen’s University and her first Master of Science in Vascular Physiology from Queen’s University. Natasha Saunders completed her medical training at the University of Toronto in 2008 followed by her residency in paediatrics at SickKids from 2008 to 2012. After residency, Saunders completed an Academic General Pediatrics Fellowship at SickKids and a Master of Science in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto in 2015. This was followed by a two-year Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.

Saunders’ primary areas of clinical practice are general paediatric hospitalist medicine and outpatient consultant general paediatrics.  She has co-written two best-selling parent books, most recently Baby Care Basics (Robert Rose, 2015) and The A to Z of Children’s Health: A Parent’s Guide From Birth to 10 Years (Robert Rose, 2013). Saunders’ research interests include access to and quality of care for immigrant children and youth with a specific focus on injuries and mental health of children and youth, and primary care delivery and using large linked health and administrative databases to understand health service delivery.

Academic Background

• Master of Science, Vascular Physiology, Queen’s University
  Kingston, Ontario 2002-2004
• Doctor of Medicine, University of Toronto
  Toronto, Ontario 2004 – 2008
  Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada
  2012
• Master of Sciences, Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research, University of Toronto,
  Toronto, Ontario 2013-2015
• Post-Doctoral Fellowship, The Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences
  Toronto, Ontario 2015-2016

Research Interests

• Immigrant access to care and health outcomes
• Firearm injuries
• Mental Health of Children and Youth
• Primary Care Delivery Models

Achievements

• 2015 – Claire Bombardier Award
• 2015 – Thomas and Edna Naylor Award
• 2012-2014 – Research Training Competition (Restracomp) Award

Publications

Saunders NR, Macpherson A, Sheng L, Guttmann A. Unintentional injuries among children and young adults from immigrant families: the shrinking health advantage. 2017. BMC Public Health.

Saunders NR, Lebenbaum M, Lu H, Stukel T, Urquia M, Kurdyak P, Guttmann A.  Suicide and self-harm trends in recent immigrant youth in Ontario, 1996 to 2012. 2017. BMJ Open.

Saunders NR, Macpherson A, Guan J, Guttmann A. Unintentional injuries in refugee children and youth in Ontario, Canada: a population based cross-sectional study. 2017. Injury Prevention.

Gill PJ, Saunders NR, Gandhi S, Gonzalez A, Kurdyak P, Vigod S, Guttmann A. Emergency department as a first contact for mental health problems in children and youth. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 2017. 56(6):475-482.e4.

Saunders NR, Lee H, Guan J, Macpherson A, Guttmann A. Risk of firearm-related injuries among children and youth of immigrant families. Canadian Medical Association Journal. 2017: 189(12): 452-458.

Saunders NR, Guan J, Macpherson A, Sheng, L, Guttmann A. Unintentional injuries in children and youth from immigrant families in Ontario, Canada. Canadian Medical Association Journal Open. 2017. 5(1) E90-96.

Saunders NR, Parkin PC, Maguire J, Birken CS, Borkhoff CM.  Iron status of young children from immigrant families. Archives of Diseases in Childhood. 2016; 101(12):1130-1136.

Saunders NR, To T, Parkin PC, Guttmann A. Emergency department revisits by urban immigrant children in Canada: a population-based cohort study. Journal of Pediatrics. 2016. 170: 218-226.

Saunders NR, Friedman JN. Lactose avoidance for young children with acute diarrhea. Paediatrics & Child Health. 2014: 19(10): 529-530.

Saunders NR, Hellmann J, Farine D.  Cerebral palsy and assisted conception. Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Canada 2011: 33(10):1038-1043.

Saunders NR, Scolnik D, Rebbapragada A, Koelink E, Craw L, Roth S, Aronson L, Perusini S, Silverman MS.  Focal epithelial hyperplasia caused by human papilloma virus 13. Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal 2010: 29(6): 550-552.

Gupta A, Pappo A, Saunders NR, Hopyan S, Ferguson P, Wunder J, O'Sullivan B, Catton C, Greenberg M, Blackstein M.  Clinical outcome of children and adults with localized Ewing sarcoma: impact of chemotherapy dose and timing of local therapy.  Cancer 2010: 116(13): 3189-3194.

Berger E, Saunders NR, Wang L, Friedman JN. Sickle cell disease in children: differentiating osteomyelitis from vaso-occlusive crisis. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 2009: 163(3): 251-255.