RTDNA Canada recognizes Avis Favaro with a National Lifetime Achievement Award
I remember in the early days when Avis was creating the medical beat at CTV News and thinking this could really be great…well, here we are many years and Avis did create and develop the gold standard of medical reporting in Canada. She has always leaned on the science while being able to make complicated medical issues understandable and relatable to our audiences. I believe her impact has been immeasurable. I am so proud to be able to present my former colleague with this prestigious award and recognition. Congratulations Avis!
– Fiona Conway, President, RTDNA Canada
About Avis
As the country’s longest serving television health correspondent Avis Favaro has always had one mission – telling stories that help Canadians.
Favaro began as a news writer at Global Television in 1982, under the tutelage of veteran journalist Peter Trueman. After moving into general news and business reporting, a feature story on a novel brain cancer therapy using light, sparked her interest in health journalism and set her on a path that would become her passion.
In 1992, she was recruited by CTV News and in the three decades since has worked with Lloyd Robertson and Lisa Laflamme in reporting a vast array of important health issues, from new treatments for once untreatable diseases, to shortages of essential medications, medical errors, infectious diseases, and most recently, medically assisted death.
Favaro has been recognized with a Gemini Award and 13 nominations, along with multiple awards from the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Nurses Association, the Ontario Registered Nurses Association, and the RTDNA.
Favaro holds an honourary PhD from McMaster University where this fall she will serve as the first Journalist in Residence at the Faculty of Science. She is a graduate of Western University in London, Ont., where she earned a Master’s Degree in Journalism. Her favourite role, however, is as grandmother of three (with one more on the way.)
She is deeply grateful to RTDNA Canada for this lifetime achievement award, as she begins a new chapter in her career as a freelance health journalist.
