Announcing the appointment of Dr. Diane Fredrikson as Director, Continuing Professional Development

Dear Department members,

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Diane Fredrikson to the role of Director, Continuing Professional Development in the UBC Department of Psychiatry. The appointment is for a two (2) year term commencing July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2026.

As the Director of Continuing Professional Development, Dr. Fredrikson will provide leadership in developing and promoting competency based Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in order to support CPD needs of physicians for providing evidence based mental health care for patients with mental health concerns in BC. Dr. Fredrikson will continue to oversee the monthly VCH/PHC Regional Grand Rounds, which as of January 1, 2025, will become the UBC Department of Psychiatry Grand Rounds and will be accessible via Zoom to all Department members across the province. To support her new role, she will establish an UBC Psychiatry CPD Committee which will include representation from all our distributed sites across the province and to this end, she will be reaching out to the Regional Psychiatry Department Heads across all Health Authorities to nominate representatives to sit on this new Committee.

Additionally, as CPD Director, Dr. Fredrikson will be responsible and accountable for developing and achieving strategic priorities related to this portfolio, including the promotion of an environment that integrates research into CPD within and across disciplines, and encouraging an environment of openness to research-focused presentations and integrated clinical and academic learning. She will also play a key role in establishing and facilitating partnerships and collaborations between the Department and various academic centres, institutes, and government agencies to advance UBC Psychiatry’s national and global leadership in CPD.

Dr. Fredrikson has previously held other educational and clinical leadership roles including as Oversight Director, Chronic Care within our Postgraduate Education Program, and as Medical Manager for Early Psychosis Intervention and the VCH Tertiary MHSU Program. Dr. Fredrikson continues to work closely with professional bodies and committees, and contributes extensively to educational activities focused on evidence-based CPD in mental health care. We believe her wealth of experience will be valuable in further strengthening and promoting the Department’s initiatives in CPD.

Please join us in warmly welcoming Dr. Fredrikson to this significant leadership role within the Department.

Sincerely,

We respectfully acknowledges the land on which we live, work and play is the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-waututh) Nations.