Researchers´ Profiles - Isaac Sobol

Isaac Sobol obtained his MD at Queen's University at Kingston, Canada, in 1985, and continued there to complete a residency in Family Practice. Prior to entering medicine, he had varied careers including advertising copywriter, rock band manager, recording studio office manager, wild animal caretaker at drive through safari parks, and National Park Service ranger. He moved to Canada in 1981 to attend university, and had earlier lived in the United States., Scotland, England, and France.

He worked as a family physician in Ile-la-Crosse, a Metis community in northern Saskatchewan, from 1988-89, and then served as family physician and Medical Health Officer for the Nisga'a Valley Health Board from 1989-2001, during which time he also completed a residency in Community Medicine at the University of British Columbia and received the Master of Health Sciences degree.

In 1991 he became a Medical Health Officer for the North West Community Health Services Society in Terrace, BC, and was responsible for developing an Aboriginal Health Strategy. He worked as the Director of the Division of Aboriginal People's Health in the Department of Family Practice at UBC, the Site Director for the Aboriginal Residency Program at UBC. 

His Committee work has included serving as Chair of the British Columbia Medical Association's Aboriginal Health Committee for several years, and he was a member of the Board of the Canadian Public Health Association, as Chair of the Rural Health Division, in 1993-94.

Currently, Dr. Sobol is the Chief Medical Officer of Health for Nunavut.

For the past seven years, he has led teams of medical volunteers to provide free medical clinics for the poor in eastern Tibet, on behalf of Rokpa International, whose Canadian branch, Rokpa Canada, he founded in 1992.

He is also a member of the board of Seva Canada, an NGO working to eliminate unnecessary blindness in the developing world, and he is the Canadian representative on the board of Seva's sister organization, Seva Foundation of the U.S.

E-mail: isobol@telus.net