Heffernan | Department of Critical Care | School of Medicine

Dr. Paul Heffernan MD, MSc, FRCPC, FCCP

Position(s)

Critical Care Medicine Program Director

Associate Professor

Contact Info

Dr. Paul Heffernan, MD, MSc, FRCPC, FCCP, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at Queen’s University and serves as the Program Director for the Adult Critical Care Medicine (CCM) training program. A graduate of the Memorial University of Newfoundland Faculty of Medicine (2004), he completed residency in Internal Medicine in Newfoundland and Ontario before undertaking a fellowship in Critical Care Medicine at Queen’s University, graduating in 2011. While he previously trained and practiced in Respirology (2009), Dr. Heffernan stepped away from outpatient Respirology in 2021 to focus exclusively on critical care practice and education. Clinically, he divides his time between the Kingston Health Sciences Centre intensive care units, where he has particular interest in challenging mechanical ventilation strategies and bronchoscopic skills amongst other topics. Dr. Heffernan is widely recognized for excellence in teaching; he has received multiple departmental awards and recognition for his work in curriculum design and competency‑based medical education. Beyond Queen’s, he contributes to national frameworks for postgraduate training in CCM and regularly lectures on bronchoscopic techniques, ventilator optimization, and evidence‑based critical care and other topics. He currently holds the positions of Deputy Head of Critical Care Medicine at Queen’s University, Chair of the Fellowship Education Advisory

Committee (FEAC), Governor‑at‑Large for the Southeastern Ontario Academic Medical Organization (SEAMO), and executive member of CTAQ. Dr. Heffernan remains committed to advancing high‑quality, patient‑centred care and mentoring the next generation of intensivists.

Research Interests:

Epidemiology of asthma and socioeconomic predictors of health

Clinical/Educational Areas of Focus:

Challenging mechanical ventilation, pleural-space disease, bronchoscopy, competency-based medical education.

Team