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Driven by a passion for health equity and shaped by her experience as a cancer survivor, MSc Global Health program graduate Victoria Watson has launched a career in health policy at Cancer Care Ontario.

As a junior analyst in CCO’s Clinical Programs and Quality Initiatives Department, Watson’s work supports efforts to standardize access to psychosocial oncology and scale up the role of nurses in cancer care across the province.

She says the holistic approach in the MSc Global Health program, along with the flexibility to customize her research focus and curriculum, prepared her well for the public health workforce. Choosing electives including Aboriginal Health and Development Administration deepened her knowledge of how public health is delivered to marginalized people. “Being able to curate my curriculum to align with my specific global health interests facilitated how I transitioned into a career in public health policy with an equity lens.”

For the program’s field practicum, Watson worked in CCO’s Patient Experience and Engagement Program, gaining real-life exposure to the process of implementing clinical quality improvement. Learning about the use of real-time patient feedback as policy evidence was particularly enlightening, she says. “Patient stories gave evidence as to the existing gaps in Ontario’s cancer care system and what can be done to ensure that the real needs of patients and their caregivers are met. This approach is one that I’d like to apply throughout my career, as I believe that patients’ voices should be at the centre, not the periphery, of policy implementation.”

Watson’s volunteer commitments affirm her conviction that patient input is critical to ensuring equity and continuous improvement in the health care system. She is on the Canadian Cancer Society’s Survivor Committee and speaks publicly on behalf of the CCS and the Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada. “I think it is vastly important to make cancer equity a global health priority,” she says.

Looking towards the future, Watson intends to build on her current work with CCO to develop health policy that ensures every Canadian – regardless of socioeconomic status – reaches their full health potential. “Policy, resources, and service delivery should resolve barriers to access, not sustain them.”