The Conversation Lab™ Team
Current Team
Warren Lewin, MD
Warren trained as a family physician with a focused practice in Palliative Care, gaining expertise through diverse experiences in Boston, NYC, and Toronto. Inspired by these varied settings, he collaborated with an interprofessional team and patient partners to establish evidence-based communication skills training standards for health professionals at UHN and aims to set a standard for how clinical teams train and deliver serious illness care across Canada.
Giselle Gardonyi
Giselle translates knowledge into training to meet clinician’s learning needs. She coordinates training workshops throughout the year, develops marketing materials, supports research studies, and manages day-to-day clerical tasks that allow the Lab to shine.
Jacquelin Forsey, PhD
Jacqui’s work seeks to understand the science underpinning patient-provider interactions and explore how these concepts can and are used to prepare trainees to be expert communicators when they enter clinical practice.
Alumni
Maxwell Charles, MD
Max completed his Clinical Research Fellowship in The Conversation Lab during 2024-2025. Max has a background in education and biomedical sciences, which he brought to his teaching and content creation for the lab.
He trained initially in family medicine and palliative medicine in the UK and worked at UHN in both a clinical and research role.
Max’s primary project investigated postgraduate trainee knowledge and attitudes towards a novel e-module teaching about leading prognostic uncertainty conversations.
Helen James, MD
Helen James was The Conversation Lab’s first clinical research fellow. She completed her fellowship during 2022-2024.
Helen co-developed a framework for clinician teachers to use when teaching learners how to lead conversations addressing prognostic uncertainty.
Highlights of Helen’s fellowship were co-presenting The Conversation Lab’s work at the International Congress of Academic Medicine in Quebec City in 2023 and Vancouver in 2024.
Students
Kyle Albuquerque-Boutilier
Kyle investigated impacts of a training and certification program for healthcare providers in serious illness communication skills teaching. He explored the program’s effect on perceived teaching and clinical skill ability as well as barriers and enablers to teaching these communication skills.
Support
The Conversation Lab Facilitators
We have 34 VitalTalk™-trained clinical teachers whose expertise enables us to scale our work at UHN and beyond.
Patient Partners
We are grateful to collaborate with the UHN Patient Partner program to ensure our work aligns with their needs and priorities.