Biography
A native of Barcelona Spain, Yolanda moved to Montréal with her family during Expo ‘67. She grew up in the Eastern Townships and after graduating CEGEP at Champlain Regional College in Lennoxville QC, she moved to Barcelona to attend medical school. Family priorities brought her back to Montréal a few years later and she completed medical school at the Université de Montréal in 1990. After a rotating internship at the University of Toronto she worked in the GTA as a general practitioner for a year following which she returned to postgraduate training at the University of Toronto, completing specialties in Internal Medicine, Medical Oncology (breast cancer) and Clinical Pharmacology. Yolanda moved to Kingston in 2000 and was a full-time medical oncologist at the Kingston Regional Cancer Centre until 2012. Yolanda also acquired additional expertise in medicolegal matters working as a Physician Advisor at the Canadian Medical Protective Association for over a decade. She continues to provide care to individuals with breast cancer in south-eastern Ontario at the Belleville General Hospital and also works as an Investigating Coroner in the Kingston area.
In her spare time Yolanda plays with glass. She discovered her hobby of fused glass through courses at The Glass House in Kingston and Stained Glass Stuff in Ottawa, and bought a second hand glass kiln in 2019. The kiln stayed in her garage until the pandemic hit, when she took up the hobby in earnest. Playing with glass has provided serenity and became her ‘happy place’ during the darkest days of the pandemic. Yolanda continues to learn new techniques to apply to her craft. She is a member of the Bath Artisans and the of the Visual Artists of Gananoque and Area (VAGA) with pieces on display at the gallery in Gananoque. Yolanda speaks French and Spanish, is married to an Italian pharmacist and enjoys cooking, travelling and road trips in her Mustang convertible.