Health care team

Laurie Usher

Laurie joined the staff as the Clinical Coordinator of the Audiology Department in 2001 after 20 years in public health audiology in BC. She did her training in Arizona and Idaho and her first job was as the community audiologist in Vernon. Prior to coming to Children’s, she was the Lower Mainland coordinator for public health audiology. She was the chair of the steering committee of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention – BC. As a result of their efforts, the BC Early Hearing Program has been launched in BC, providing earliest detection of hearing loss and intervention services for children and their families. She is currently working in the area of evaluation and research for the BC Early Hearing Program. She has been the recipient of both the Canadian Academy of Audiology - Honors of the Academy and the Distinguished Service Award of the BC Association of Speech Language Pathologists and Audiologists. Her clinical work at Children’s is with the Neonatal Follow Up Team, supporting the neonatal intensive care graduates and their families along with a team of interdisciplinary colleagues.

Robert Hunter

Robert graduated from Dalhousie University in 1982 (M.Sc.) after a brief career as a sign language interpreter and instructor at Vancouver Community College. His first audiology work was at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto followed by a five-year stint helping establish audiology services in Saudi Arabia. He arrived at the doorsteps of Children's in 2002 and his special areas of interest, in addition to general pediatric audiology, is evoked response audiometry and auditory neuropathy. His specialty is cochlear implants and he is part of the Cochlear Implant Team.

Anna Van Maanen

Anna has worked as an audiologist for the past 13 years after graduating from the Master of Science (Audiology) Program at Minot State University. She worked as a clinical audiologist in Saskatchewan for two years. She then moved to BC to work for the Workers’ Compensation Board of British Columbia (WCB) Audiology Unit, where she has worked for 11 years. She received her AuD from Central Michigan University this year, after completing research on the multiple-auditory steady-state response for objective threshold estimation. Her most recent experience at the WCB includes medical-legal assessments and providing opinions on occupational noise-induced and traumatic hearing loss claims. Anna still works at WCB, but the majority of her employment is at Children’s, where she enjoys assessments and evoked potentials for threshold estimation. She feels that her experience with evoked potentials at the WCB has provided a strong background and a smooth transition to working with babies.

Donna Myer

Donna has been with Children’s since 1993; first on a part-time basis and full-time since January 2002. She has also worked in a private practice hearing aid clinic and in the Neuro-otology Clinic at VGH since graduating with her Master of Science from McGill University in 1993. She obtained a Bachelor of Nursing degree from University of Manitoba in 1989 and worked as a nurse for three years before returning to university. She enjoys all aspects of working in pediatrics, but her special area of interest is cochlear implants.

Todd Mitchell

Todd joined the BC Children’s team in 2000. He graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1997. Prior to coming to Children's, he worked providing hearing aid fittings, diagnostic ABR and vestibular testing, as well as tinnitus rehabilitation. He is a past president of the Canadian Academy of Audiology. Since July 2007, he has been the clinical coordinator of the Cochlear Implant Team.

Beth Brooks

Beth has been working part time at Children's since 1985 and has also worked at Vancouver General Hospital, St. Paul's Hospital, the Vancouver Oral Centre, the Western Institute of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the Program for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Adults at Vancouver Community College. Beth completed her MSc in Audiology and Speech Sciences at the University of British Columbia in 1982 and has been a Clinical Assistant Professor there since 1994. She has done research in aural rehabilitation, focussing on communication strategies and sensory devices for people with severe-profound hearing loss. She has taught speechreading (lipreading) at VCC since 1981. Beth currently works half-time at VCC and half-time at Children's. She has particular interests in ototoxicity and hearing assessment of difficult-to-test children.

Jenny Hatton

Ruth Chia

Ruth has worked as a pediatric audiologist for the past 6 years after completing her M.Sc. in Audiology and Speech Sciences from the University of British Columbia in 2002. Ruth recently joined the team at Children’s in October 2008, primarily working in the Cochlear Implant Services. Prior to this, she was at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto working on various teams including the Cochlear Implant Program.

Catherine Lavrench

Catherine is the administrative assistant for the Audiology and Speech Department. She has worked for Children and Women's Hospital since 1996 when she began at Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children. She has been at the BC Children’s Hospital site since March 2001 , working in the Oak Tree Clinic, Neonatal Follow-up Program , the Microbiology Lab and currently in the Audiology & Speech Department. She is responsible for booking appointments and keeping a very busy clinic organized.

Kathy Barker
Lorna Gurat