Elizabeth Davis

Elizabeth M. Davis is a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy of Newfoundland and Labrador. She is presently a doctoral student in Scripture at the Toronto School of Theology, University of Toronto. She has a B.A. and a B.Ed. from Memorial University of Newfoundland, an M.A. (Theology) from the University of Notre Dame and an M.H.Sc (Administration) from the University of Toronto.

Prior to 1982, she was a high school teacher in several communities in Newfoundland teaching Mathematics, English and Religious Studies. From 1986 to 1994, she served as Executive Director of St. Clare's Mercy Hospital, a teaching hospital in St. John's, Newfoundland. From 1994 to 2000, she served as the first President and Chief Executive Officer of the Health Care Corporation of St. John's, a regional health board which brought together eight teaching hospitals and health centres, a school of nursing and a regional ambulance service.

She has been an active participant on board and system-wide committees and task forces in both the health and education systems. She is presently the chairperson of the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation, the president of the Medical Council of Canada, and a member of the Board of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the Board of Regis College (Toronto School of Theology). She is a member of the Mercy International Research Commission in Dublin, Ireland. She is a part-time faculty member at St. Augustine's Seminary (Toronto) where she teaches the Introduction to the Old Testament.
 
She has served as the chairperson of the Board of the Catholic Health Association of Canada and as a member of the boards of the National Board of Medical Examines of the United States, the Association of Canadian Teaching Hospitals, the Canadian Institute of Health Information, Operation Online, and the Cabot Institute of Applied Arts and Technology (St. John's). She has been a member of faculty for Dalhousie University's Management Program for Clinical Leaders (1991 - 2000) and for the International Medical Ethics Conference in Beijing, China (1993) and she represented Canada at the PAHO Conference on Decentralization in Valdivia, Chile (1995). She has been an adjunct professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Ms. Davis served as one of three commissioners on the Royal Commission on Renewing andStrengthening Newfoundland and Labrador's Place in Canada (June 2002 - June 2003). Among her recent awards are the 2001 Performance Citation Award (from the Catholic Health Association of Canada), the 2001 Award For Excellence in Distinguished Service (from the Canadian Healthcare Association), an honorary doctor of laws from Memorial University of Newfoundland (May 2002), induction into the Alpha Sigma Nu Honour Society of Jesuit Educational Institutions (October 2003), appointment as a Member of the Order of Canada (May 2004), the Leadership Achievement Award from the University of Toronto Society of Graduates in Health Policy, Management & Evaluation (October 2006). Ms. Davis is also a member of the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador. She was appointed a Trudeau mentor in 2007.

She has made presentations to senior health executives in Melbourne, Australia; in Belfast, Northern Ireland; and in Dublin, Ireland. She has spoken provincially, nationally and internationally on transforming the health care system, on maintaining a values-base in times of uncertainty, on ethics in this new time and on leadership today.