He’s a physician, researcher and advocate breaking down barriers between medical specialists and provincial borders to improve care for Canadians
Age: 39
When a friend asked him to apply to volunteer with her at a children’s hospice, Kyle Sue-Milne agreed in solidarity. He was 16, and knew next to nothing about palliative care.
To his surprise, he was offered the volunteer job. “I didn’t know if I had what it takes,” he says. But soon discovered he loved working with the kids, whose parents remarked that many physicians shied away from working with their medically complex children.
“It was rewarding, and it got me thinking that I could go into a field that helps this population.” He wanted to care for complex-needs patients, knowing it would mean transcending the narrower focus of specialists.
After finishing med school, Sue-Milne completed residencies in different disciplines and jurisdictions, determined to get a well-rounded education. “Clinicians can be siloed. I wanted to bridge gaps in my knowledge.”
He practised rural family medicine across Newfoundland and Labrador, worked with people with developmental disabilities in Ontario and treated pediatric pain in B.C. Now a physician, researcher and educator, his work spans pediatric and adult pain and palliative care, developmental pediatrics and rural medicine.
Sue-Milne advocates for interprovincial medical practice, ensuring physicians can work in other regions during public health emergencies. “COVID drove it home. There were intensive care units that didn’t have doctors well enough to work,” he says. Moving doctors to overwhelmed communities was difficult due to the cumbersome process of obtaining medical licences in other jurisdictions.
With the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada, Sue-Milne advocates for streamlined processes and has brought together medical organizations and governments to increase labour mobility. He and colleagues have made progress on interprovincial licensure issues, and aim to tackle laboratory access and billing. “Labour mobility is great. But it’s useless if you can’t get paid or order labs. We need to address barriers.”
This article appears in the November-December 2026 issue of Edify
