Lennox Huang

Staff Physician, Department of Critical Care Medicine

Project Investigator, SickKids Research Institute

Dr. Lennox Huang is the Chief Medical Officer and Vice President for Education, Medical & Academic Affairs at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). He is a clinically active paediatric intensivist in the Paediatric Critical Care Unit, a Professor in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto, and Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at McMaster University.

A physician executive and award-winning educator, Dr. Huang holds dual certification in Pediatrics and Pediatric Critical Care and is a Certified Physician Executive through the American Association for Physician Leadership. He previously served as Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at McMaster University and Chief of Pediatrics for Hamilton Health Sciences and St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton. During his tenure at McMaster, the department grew its faculty by more than 60 per cent, established a new division of emergency medicine and a Child-Life Master’s program, and more than doubled its fellowship trainees.

Dr. Huang has led regional and national safety initiatives, including the Toronto Academic Health Sciences Network Escalation of Care effort and the National Pediatric Patient Safety Curriculum. During the COVID-19 pandemic Dr. Huang co-led the regional physician response across the greater Toronto Area and served as the executive sponsor of the Toronto Youth COVID-19 Vaccination effort. He currently co-chairs the Board of Directors of the Global Network for Simulation in Healthcare and the Ontario Paediatric Specialized Services Advisory Committee for the Ministry of Health.

Research

Dr. Huang's scholarly work focuses on how health-care organizations learn, improve and keep patients safe, spanning quality and safety, physician wellness, and healthcare simulation, using realistic, rehearsed scenarios to test teams, processes and physical spaces before problems reach real patients. A particular interest is applying in-situ simulation to the design and commissioning of clinical environments and to the detection of latent safety threats. His team has used simulation-based testing of new paediatric emergency spaces and combined simulation with lean methods to evaluate department design. As Co-Chair of the Board of the Global Network for Simulation in Healthcare (GNSH), he helps connect the field to the most pressing issues facing health care today.

Dr. Huang has served as principal knowledge user on multiple CIHR-funded studies, including CLIMB, a simulation-based coaching intervention addressing paediatric workforce burnout, and the ATTEMPT trial in adolescent type 1 diabetes. In these roles he ensures research questions are grounded in real clinical needs and that findings reach practice and policy. His interests also extend to AI, teamwork, psychological safety and effective debriefing as engines of clinical improvement, and to how learning health systems can be redesigned to anticipate the effects of new interventions, including AI, rather than only studying them after the fact. Across this work, his consistent aim is to translate evidence into practical tools that clinicians and leaders can use at the bedside and in the boardroom.

Education and experience

• 2023–present: Professor, Department of Pediatrics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
• 2022–present: Vice President, Education, SickKids, Toronto, ON, Canada
• 2015–present: Chief Medical Officer and Vice President, Medical & Academic Affairs, SickKids, Toronto, ON, Canada
• 2015–present: Staff Physician, Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, SickKids, Toronto, ON, Canada
• 2010–present: Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Pediatrics, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
• 2011–2015: Chair, Department of Pediatrics, McMaster University, and Chief of Pediatrics, McMaster Children's Hospital, Hamilton, ON, Canada
• 2018–2021: Master of Business Administration (MBA), University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA
• 2000–2004: Fellowship, Pediatric Critical Care, Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital, University Hospitals of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH, USA
• 1997–2000: Pediatric Residency, Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital, University Hospitals of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH, USA
• 1993–1997: Doctor of Medicine (MD), University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Achievements

• 2022–present: Co-chair, Board of Directors, Global Network for Simulation in Healthcare (GNSH)
• 2023: Citizenship Award, Medical Staff Association, SickKids, Toronto, ON, Canada
• 2015–present: Co-chair, Medical Advisory Committee, SickKids
• 2015–present: Co-chair, Quality Management Committee, SickKids
• 2015–2017: Elected Member, Board of Directors, International Pediatric Simulation Society
• 2014: Certified Physician Executive (CPE), Certifying Commission in Medical Management, American Association for Physician Leadership
• 2006: Certificate of Merit, Canadian Association for Medical Education (CAME)

Funding