During her term, Dr. Shelly McNeil will continue to focus on stabilizing primary care for Nova Scotians by working with health-system partners. 

Dr. McNeil is an infectious diseases specialist based in Halifax. Her practice involves inpatient consultations at the QEII and IWK Health women’s services. She also works in ambulatory clinics at the Dickson Building and in the new Bayers Lake Outpatient Centre.

She was the Senior Medical Director of the COVID-19 Planning and Implementation Network, a provincial multidisciplinary Nova Scotia Health (NSH) group comprised of clinical and operational leaders tasked with providing guidance on the health authority’s response to the pandemic to mitigate its impact on patients, their support people, physicians and staff. 

She is a member of the Senior Leadership Team at NSH, where she serves as the Senior Medical Director of the Emerging and Re-emerging Infections Network (formerly the COVID-19 Planning and Implementation Network). The network guides the NSH response to emerging and re-emerging infections and builds on the many innovations developed during COVID-19 to enhance the response to future pandemics. 

Dr. McNeil was born in Kentville, N.S., but because her father was in the Canadian Armed Forces, she received her elementary and high school education in Ontario, Manitoba and Prince Edward Island. Summers were spent with her grandparents in her hometown, so she has always considered Kentville and the Annapolis Valley home.

Dr. McNeil is married to Dr. Tim Mailman, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at IWK Health and Senior Medical Director of the NSH Diagnostics and Therapeutics Network. Their daughter, Emma, lives with her partner Curtis on their hobby farm in Avonport. They are expecting their first children, twins!

Soon Dr. McNeil will enjoy her most important title: grandmother.