Staff Bios

Dr. Donna Turner is an epidemiologist and has worked at CancerCare Manitoba since 1999. She has held the role of Chief of Population Oncology since 2007. This portfolio is comprised of key analytic units (Epidemiology, the Manitoba Cancer Registry, and System Performance); Prevention and Screening (BreastCheck, CervixCheck and ColonCheck); Quality and Patient Safety; and Standards. She is also the Scientific Director of The Manitoba Tomorrow Project.

As an epidemiologist, Dr. Turner is interested in providing the perspective of cancer at an overall population level, with a focus on the numbers - how many people are diagnosed with cancer in the province, what types of cancer are most common, and why do we see the numbers and types of cancer we do? Extending this perspective, she is interested in how data and evidence support cancer control: preventing cancer when we can, finding it early if we can’t prevent it, and treating and supporting patients to ensure they have the best outcomes possible. Measurement and evidence-based approaches are integral to CancerCare Manitoba’s success as the province's cancer authority in this regard.

Dr. Turner is a champion for using data in healthcare decision-making in Manitoba, but also nationally and internationally. She works closely with the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, provincial, federal and international cancer control organizations, and many research and science-to-action teams, in order to facilitate knowledge sharing to advance the health of Manitobans.

Dr. Turner graduated from the University of Victoria’s Health Information Science program, received her Ph.D. from the University of Alberta and completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy. She is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba.

Dr. Kathleen Decker is a Scientist in the Research Institute of Oncology and Hematology and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba. She leads the Health Services Research Group in the Research Institute and works closely with the Department of Epidemiology and Cancer Registry at CancerCare Manitoba. Her research examines how and when Manitobans use health care across the cancer control continuum from screening to survivorship. The goal of her research and that of the Health Services Research Group is to investigate the reasons that contribute to the challenges that face cancer control (e.g. inequities in access, increasing costs, rising incidence), and generate new knowledge and evidence-based solutions to achieve better health outcomes, improve the health and quality of life of Manitobans diagnosed with cancer, and optimize health system performance and sustainability. She currently holds research grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the CancerCare Manitoba Foundation. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba, an MHA from Dalhousie University, and an Honours B.Sc. from the University of Waterloo.

Gail Noonan is the Manager of the Cancer Registry and a certified tumour registrar. She has spent her career at CancerCare Manitoba worked at CCMB for 30 years now with most of those years in the Cancer Registry as a cancer registrar.

Her research interests revolve around the collection and quality of the data in the Manitoba Cancer Registry and staying up-to-date with all the current coding and staging classifications to assist researchers, analysts and/or physicians looking to the Registry for information. She chairs the Committee on Data and Quality Management which provides recommendations and advice to the Canadian Council of Cancer Registries on matters relating to the quality and the standardization of the Canadian Cancer Registry data collection, storage, analysis and reporting. The membership includes representatives from across Canada and allows her to network, leverage knowledge and keep current with all aspects of cancer data collection in the Registry.