To All Members of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences

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From the Desk of Nick Kates, Chair Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences October, 2013 To All Members of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences My first Update as

1 From the Desk of Nick Kates, Chair Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences October, 2013 To All Members of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences My first Update as the permanent Chair of our Department covers a number of events and upcoming activities, and introduces the new Director of our Child Psychiatry Training program. But I d like to begin by announcing a new event that I hope will become an annual occurrence, where we will recognize those members of our Department who have been successful in obtaining grants or have received awards (whether for research, education, or clinical excellence) over the last year. The event will be an end of the day celebratory reception to which everyone in the Department is invited, to acknowledge the accomplishments of our award and grant winners. It will take place on Thursday November 14 th. from in the area outside the Miller Auditorium at St. Joseph s Charlton Site, immediately following the end of the Radical Collaboration Conference organized by our Forensics Program. It will be relatively informal and provide a chance to learn about our successes. Whether or not you have received an award or grant, I hope you will join us. The aforementioned Radical Collaborations Conference, which takes place from on November 14 th will focus on ways to generate new ideas for research in Forensic Mental Health. Anyone can attend, and registration information is available from Josie Cosco at jcosco@stjoes.ca Our 2013 Holiday Reception Our Annual Holiday Reception is provisionally scheduled for Wednesday December 11th 2013 from in the Great Hall at the University Club on campus at McMaster University. Last year we re-established the tradition of skits by both residents and faculty and I hope this will continue for this year and beyond. I would encourage you to think about possible skits, songs or activities that you might consider presenting in front of the department. I will provide a reminder in November s Update. A new Director of our Child Psychiatry Sub-Specialty Program I am very pleased to announce that Jennifer Couturier has taken over from Sheila Harms as the Director of our recently approved Child Psychiatry Sub-Specialty Program, and we are now recruiting our first resident for July Jennifer is a child and adolescent psychiatrist, and the medical co-director of the Pediatric Eating Disorders Program at McMaster Children s Hospital. She is an Assistant Professor within the Departments of Psychiatry & Behavioural

2 Neurosciences, Pediatrics, and Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics at McMaster University, and her research focuses on psychotherapy for eating disorders, with a special interest in family therapy approaches. The applications for the Forensics and Geriatrics Psychiatry Programs are also close to completion. Geriatrics will be submitted to the Royal College in December and Forensics in the first half of next year. Welcome to New Faculty We welcome three people who have recently moved from part-time to full-time status. Sheryl Green is a clinical health psychologist working in the Women's Health Concern's Clinic and Consultation Liaison Service at St. Joseph s interested in assessing and treating mood and anxiety disorders in specialized populations (e.g., chronic pain, perinatal) using CBT and mindfulness-based treatments. Brenda Key is a clinical psychologist at the Mood Disorders Program and the Anxiety Treatment and Research Centre, also interested in interventions that integrate CBT and mindfulness based therapies. And Sheila Harms is a child and youth psychiatrist who was recently introduced to the Department when she was selected to be our Psychiatry Residency Program Director from July 2014 Taking up part-time appointments with our Department are Kathy Smolewska who works at the Acquired Brain Inquiry and Stroke Program at HHS; Jodi Younger, Clinical Director and Clinical Lead for Redevelopment for General Psychiatry and Addiction Services St. Joseph s HealthCare; and Olubukole Kolawole, staff psychiatrist with the Forensics Unit at St. Joseph s Healthcare. And joining us with an adjunctive position are: Yousef Papadopoulos, who works at Homewood in the Comprehensive Psychiatric Care Unit, Briar Long who is a consulting psychiatrist at the University of Guelph and Raj Velamoor, Interim Medical Director, based at CMHA Waterloo Wellington Dufferin. Electives Fair for First Year Medical Students Our thanks to David Fudge (PGY1), Nancy Devlin and Alina Brotea for representing our Department at last week s Elective Fair for first year medical students. This reinforced the importance of providing undergraduate students with information about psychiatry as both a specialty and a possible career choice early in their training. Alina also chairs a small working group set up by Natasja Menezes to look at Recruitment and Promotion of Psychiatry (RAPP) and find new way to increase the interest of medical students in Psychiatry, and raise the profile of our Department.

3 Our Leadership Preparation Program got off to a superb start on October 4 th with the initial full day workshop for our 13 attendees. Thanks to Sarah Jarmain from Western University, our presenter for the day with assistance from Gary Chaimowitz. The communities of practice will be getting underway in November. Global Mental Health The next meeting of the Global Mental Health Interest Group will be on Friday October 25 th from in the office of the Hamilton Family Health Team, on the 3 rd floor at 10 George St. I am attaching a summary prepared by Sheila Harms and Lindsey George on their current plans. Accreditation Visits Our 3 major educational programs are scheduled to undergo accreditation visits over the next two years. The MD Program accreditation will take place in the spring of 2015 and the Postgraduate Program Accreditation visit will also take place in 2015, but possibly later in the year. The Accreditation of our Psychology Residency Program will take place in Academic Divisions As we move ahead with the implementation of our new strategic directions, we want to revisit the current structure and goals of our academic divisions, to see if this is the best model to advance our work. Our six current academic divisions are Child, Forensics, Geriatrics, Schizophrenia, Mood and Anxiety and General Psychiatry, but I have also had requests from other areas, including Global Mental Health, to become a formal division. To help us rethink this, the Executive has established a small task force to look at the purpose of academic divisions, their responsibilities and how they do / could move our academic agenda forward. The members of this group are: Margaret McKinnon (lead), Sid Stacey, Ram Mishra, Patti Rosebush, Lawrence Martin and Peter Bieling Chair s Presentation on October 9th The slides from my October 9 th. presentation to the Department are now available on the website. There were two topics arising from my talk I would like to mention in a little more detail DSM 5 Whatever our views on DSM 5, it is going to have an increasingly significant impact on our work over the months ahead. To help us better understand it, we will be organizing a series of educational events and case-based rounds to go over its key aspects. While a lot of this activity

4 will take place through clinical settings and Rounds at our Academic Divisions, we will also be using a few Department Rounds slots to go over key features, beginning this Wednesday (October 23 rd ) with a presentation by Margaret McKinnon which will include an overview of DSM5 and its implications for mood and trauma. Plan Do Study Act (PDSAs) During my presentation I talked of the importance of creating a culture of excellence and innovation to support our work, one part of which was continually looking for ways to improve what we do and testing small changes that would help us to do so. A key tool for introducing and testing changes is the Institute for healthcare Improvement (IHI) Model for Improvement. This has three steps. The first is to define what we want to improve. The second is to decide how we will measure whether a change is actually an improvement. We then test a new idea or change using the Plan Do Study Act (PDSA) cycle. It is a basic tool for most improvement work, and I hope we will start to use it. For those of you who are less familiar with the Model, here is a link to the IHI s website which explains it further. spx On-Line evaluation form for Department Rounds We have now posted a Department Rounds Evaluation Form on our website for those viewing via webcast or video conference. You can find this form on the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neuroscience website by choosing the Education tab and then choosing Grand Rounds. Congratulations to. In addition to our five recent award winners who I mentioned in an last Friday (Pri Weerasekera, Jon Davine, Paul Mulzer, Katherine McKay and Suzanne Archie) I would also like to congratulate Peter Cook on completing the Muskoka Half Ironman on Sunday, September 8 th, and finishing third in his age group Sid Stacey on successfully finishing the World Triathlon Race in London, England on September 15th. He finished as the 6th fastest Canadian in his age category and 50th out of 81 at the world level. Benicio Frey, who was able to use data obtained from his project that was funded through the Department s Innovation fund to obtain an educational grant from BMS to develop a psychoeducational program for perinatal women with bipolar disorder

5 BCT resident, Alexandra Douglas (first year at the Waterloo Campus) and her husband Chris, on the safe arrival of their daughter Lily Maria on September 5th. And two more summer weddings Terry Mihowich a PGY2 who married Sunita Singh on September 14, Elaine Chow a PGY3 who married Jeremy Daniels on August 31, 2013.

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