“High blood pressure is easy to take for granted because it’s so common, but there’s a lot of complexity in care, how it’s managed, and how people access care,” says Dr. Ann Bugeja.Like most physician-scientists, Dr. Ann Bugeja’s research questions are inspired by her patients. 

She’s medical director of the hospital’s Living Kidney Donor Program, which in 2021 started an innovative one-day screening process to make it easier for people to become donors. She’s now doing research on the cost-effectiveness of this process and also evaluating educational tools for potential kidney donors and recipients. 

In addition, Dr. Bugeja treats patients with high blood pressure at the hypertension clinic. Guidelines on how to manage this chronic disease usually focus on the patient’s other medical conditions, such as heart disease or diabetes. 

However, Dr. Bugeja has seen in her research that sex and socio-economic factors can also impact a patient’s outcomes. Understanding this better could help personalize care. She’s particularly interested in how high blood pressure is managed among immigrants and refugees, who have varying access to healthcare in Canada.

“High blood pressure is easy to take for granted because it’s so common, but there’s a lot of complexity in care, how it’s managed, and how people access care,” she says.

Dr. Bugeja welcomes students and collaborators interested in studying hypertension and vascular disease with a sex/gender lens.

In addition to being a recently appointed as an associate scientist in the Inflammation and Chronic Disease Program at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Dr. Bugeja is a nephrologist at The Ottawa Hospital and associate professor at the University of Ottawa.

The Ottawa Hospital is a leading academic health, research and learning hospital proudly affiliated with the University of Ottawa and supported by The Ottawa Hospital Foundation.