Shelagh Coutts

Dr. Coutts is Assistant Professor Stroke Neurology in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Calgary.

Dr. Coutts obtained her Undergraduate Medical Degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1997 and undertook general medical training at Glasgow Royal Infirmary prior to specializing in neurology. She moved to Calgary to complete a Fellowship in Stroke Neurology with Dr. Alastair Buchan and completed her Neurology Residency Training, receiving her FRCPC (Neurology) in 2006. During her stroke neurology training, she completed a postgraduate research degree on “Modern imaging: its role in prediction of outcome after stroke and TIA” and she received her MD (PhD equivalent) for this from the University of Edinburgh in 2005.

Her research interests include the use of acute imaging in triage and treatment of stroke and TIA patients in the Emergency Department. She plans to design therapeutic trials in high risk TIA and minor stroke using imaging to identify patients. She is also interested in the epidemiology of stroke and in improving the outcomes of patients with TIA. Currently she is coordinating a project to reduce the rate of stroke after a TIA throughout the province of Alberta. Her work is funded by The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and by a Pfizer cardiovacsular research award.

She has received a number of awards for her work, including the “Siekert New Investigator Award” from the American Stroke Association, as well as the 2008 Petro Canada Young Innovator Award in Community Health. She is the first recipient of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada Distinguished Clinician Scientist award, supported in partnership with the CIHR Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health and AstraZeneca Canada Inc. She also hold a clinical investigator award from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research.

Updated: 2009-07-24