Full professor
Department of Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine
Faculty of Medicine

Originally trained as an architect, France Légaré has been practicing family medicine in Quebec since 1990 and is a full professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine at Université Laval, Quebec. She is internationally recognized as a leader in shared decision-making (SDM) research and knowledge application.

In 2005, she earned a PhD in Population Health from the University of Ottawa under the supervision of Dr. Annette O’Connor. That same year, she received a clinical researcher fellowship from the Quebec Health Research Fund (FRQS) for her research program titled “Health Professionals in Primary Care: From Knowledge Brokers to Decision Brokers.” Between June 2006 and May 2016, Dr. Légaré held the Canada Research Chair in Shared Decision Making (SDM) and Knowledge Translation (KT) at the Tier 2 level. Since June 1, 2016, she has held the Canada Research Chair in Shared Decision Making and Knowledge Translation at the Tier 1 level. This chair has been renewed for another 7-year term, until 2030.

She directed the Cochrane site of the CHU de Québec-Université Laval Research Center (CRCHU de Qc) and Université Laval within the Canadian Cochrane Network from 1999 to 2013, and from 2013 to 2015 served as its first scientific director. She is now the co-scientific director.

She is a regular researcher at the VITAM-Research Center for Sustainable Health and the CRCHU de Qc. In 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021, she has been listed among the world’s most cited scientists, with her work being repeatedly recognized by her peers as remarkably important and useful.

Dr. Légaré was named “Grand Quebecois in the Health Sector” by the Quebec Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIQ) in the 2022 edition. She is the recipient of the Dr. Leo Paul Landry Service Medal from the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) 2020 edition and received the President’s Award from the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC) 2020 edition for exemplary national leadership in academic medicine. In 2022, she was appointed a Knight of the National Order of Quebec and received the Michel Sarrazin Prize in 2022.

Her research program aims to implement shared decision-making in clinical practices with a focus on home care and prenatal screening programs. In addition to SDM, primary care, and knowledge translation, she is also an expert in implementation science and scale-up science. Alongside her colleagues, she has developed several SDM interventions for various contexts and has trained a large number of healthcare professionals. For example, she has trained over 270 family physicians in sustainable disease management and optimal use of antibiotics for acute respiratory infections. More recently, she has trained over 600 healthcare professionals in an interprofessional approach to SDM in home care.