Katherine Paphitis

I began my career in public health as a Public Health Inspector, with a particular interest in and focus on communicable disease. Through my PHI role inspecting childcare centres, long-term care homes, personal services settings and other premises, and being involved in case and outbreak management, I quickly realized the importance of infection prevention and control in each of these settings. Several years later, PHIs in Ontario were tasked with investigating complaints in Regulated Health Professional settings, and we were encouraged and supported to obtain our CIC to give us additional credibility and depth of understanding when interacting with various regulated health professionals. So began my involvement with IPAC Canada, and I’ve never looked back!

I began as a member of the CSO chapter, joined the Surveillance and Applied Epidemiology Interest Group (SAEIG) and started attending meetings. At the time I was also pursuing graduate education in epidemiology while working full-time. I quickly realized that IPAC Canada had so much more to offer me, including opportunities to both apply and further develop my professional and academic skillset, and to network with like-minded professionals across Canada. I soon took advantage of an opportunity to co-chair SAEIG, then joined Standards and Guidelines, and the CJIC Editorial Board. Most recently I was honored to be nominated by my peers as the incoming Director of Standards and Guidelines.

I’ve now been an IPAC Canada member for over 10 years and am so grateful for the many professional development opportunities it has given me. I’m proud to maintain my CIC and to contribute to an organization that is so richly supported by so many passionate and experienced IPAC practitioners and can’t wait to see where my IPAC journey takes me!