Dr. Laura Purcell is an Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. She completed her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees at the University of Toronto. She obtained her medical degree from McMaster University. Her residency training was in pediatrics at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She completed a sport medicine fellowship at the Fowler Kennedy Sport Medicine Clinic at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario.
Dr. Purcell is the founding president of the Paediatric Sport and Exercise Medicine Section of the Canadian Paediatric Society and has served in this capacity for 9 years. She is a liaison member of the Healthy Active Living and Sport Medicine Committee of the CPS and has authored many position statements and practise points for the CPS journal.
She is also the founding chair of the Pediatric Sport and Exercise Medicine Committee of the Canadian Academy of Sport and Exercise Medicine. She was the chair from 2003-2009. She was involved in two joint statements between CPS and CASEM.
Dr. Purcell is a member of the Concussion Education and Awareness Committee of ThinkFirst Canada. She has published many articles on sport-related concussion in pediatric athletes and was an invited panellist at the 2008 Zurich Concussion Consensus conference.
She has practised pediatric sport medicine for 9.5 years and is currently working as a pediatric sport medicine physician at the David Braley Sport Medicine and Rehabilitation Centre at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario and at The Elliott Sport Medicine Clinic in Burlington, ON. She has also practised pediatric emergency medicine for 12.5 years and currently works at the McMaster Children’s Emergency Department.
