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Chair of Pediatrics leaves Mac

Thursday, November 13th 2008

McMaster University will soon say goodbye to a prominent member of its faculty. Peter Steer, the chair of the Department of Pediatrics, will be leaving in early 2009 to become the Chief Executive of a new children’s hospital in his native hometown Australia. The hospital awaiting him is a large, 300-bed children’s hospital in Brisbane, Queensland that is set to open between 2011 and 2014.

Steer graduated from the University of Queensland and had a fellowship at McMaster from the years of 1989 to 1991.

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Since Steer’s arrival to Hamilton in 2003, he has attained several positions within the city of Hamilton. Those positions include chair of pediatrics for Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, president of the McMaster Children’s hospital and the chief of pediatrics for the Hamilton Health Sciences and the St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton. The achievements completed by Steer in the past five years include converting McMaster’s hospital’s E.R. into a children’s only hospital and growing the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at McMaster to the extent that it is now the largest facility of its kind in Canada.

John Kelton, Dean and Vice-President of the Faculty of Health Sciences, expressed his views on Steer’s depature from McMaster, “Dr. Steer has had an important impact on the development of pediatric training at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine. We particularly appreciate his role in setting up the new McMaster Child Health Research Institute, which will advance research in all areas of child and adolescent health. He will be missed, but we wish him all the very best.”

Steer commented, “It genuinely has been a great experience [at McMaster]… There are great people here, and great people around the provincial and national tables. It’s really been an emotional day because it was not an easy decision, despite the attractiveness of the job, because you get attached to great people.”