Mark Cameron named Member of the Order of Canada

Mark Cameron recently returned from a week in Iraq. There, he ran a critical care education program close to the northern border. The destination also facilitated access to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, where for years he has provided medical aid and education with the Canadian International Medical Relief Organization (CIMRO), a humanitarian organization that he co-founded alongside other healthcare workers. With CIMRO, Mark has helped lead a United Nations polio vaccination campaign for children in Syria and has also travelled to deliver medical aid and training in Ukraine, Guyana, Turkey and China, among other countries.

Between these trips abroad, Mark was among the latest appointees to be named a Member of the Order of Canada, announced last month. One of the country’s highest honours, the Order of Canada recognizes individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the country and their communities, and who are trailblazers in their fields. Mark is recognized for his work as an educator and paramedic providing front line combat medicine, and for the reach of CIMRO initiatives to help global communities in need.

A former flight paramedic and the associate director of Sunnybrook’s Advanced Life Support and Trauma Education program, the Order of Canada adds to Mark’s impressive list of accolades. He was the recipient of the Canadian Medal of Bravery and Sunnybrook Teacher of the Year Award in 2014, and the Meritorious Service Medal in 2017.

But for Mark, he’s just the face of these honours. What they truly reflect, he says, is the work of the CIMRO team and his colleagues both at Sunnybrook and on the ground in conflict zones.

“It’s humbling to get these awards, but it really is for a crowd of people. This is a team sport,” Mark says. “I don’t view it as a personal award. It’s part of a team effort over a long period of time.”

As part of his work with CIMRO, Mark takes the much of the same curriculum that’s taught through Sunnybrook’s Advanced Life Support Educator program and applies it abroad to provide medical education to doctors, nurses and medical students.

In addition to teaching at Sunnybrook, Mark is also a teaching fellow in the Mind/Brain Centre on War and Humanity at Stony Brook University in New York State. There, he was recently part of a research team that investigated self-reported incidents of post-traumatic stress among Syrian civilians throughout the Syrian civil war. Where previous studies had estimated rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among civilians in war zones to be in the area of 30 per cent, the data collected by Mark’s team suggest that it could be as high as 70 to 85 per cent.

“This could have huge impacts on the kinds of health care we deliver post-war and to refugees,” Mark explains. “It’s important for medical teams to understand what they’re dealing with in terms of trauma, both immediate psychological trauma and long-term generational trauma that come out of these war zones.”

As an example, Mark points to regime military hospitals in Syria, which had routinely been used to torture civilians throughout the conflict.

“Walking through the front doors of a hospital here, which might have similar sounds and smells to these other hospitals, that can be a really traumatizing experience,” he says.

The publication of this research, which Mark says was 10 years in the making, is possibly more impactful for him than various honours in his name, and reflects many of the efforts of the CIMRO team and support from Sunnybrook. He hopes that the research team will be able to continue its work and collect data in other war zones and areas of conflict.

“The Order of Canada is a very prestigious award, and we're very honored to receive that,” Mark says. “CIMRO is a big team, and Sunnybrook has been a big part of it.”