The Department is deeply saddened to share the news that Dr. Karen Trueman passed away on November 16, 2024. Dr. Trueman worked with the Interior Health Authority as a psychiatrist at Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital and joined the UBC Department of Psychiatry as a Clinical Instructor in 2014.
Dr. Trueman completed both her Medical Degree and Residency programs with UBC. She was in the first graduating class from the UBC-UNBC Northern Medical Program, educating physicians in northern and rural communities to serve the local populations. She was then among the first in her postgraduate program to complete a psychiatry residency in Victoria, in 2013. After graduation, she began practicing in Trail, BC, where, during the COVID-19 Pandemic, she initiated a tele-psychiatry project for Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital to address the pandemic restrictions and changing needs in rural communities. She also selflessly committed herself to ALS research at the University of Alberta, travelling from Rossland, BC to Edmonton, Alberta every three months, despite her continuous loss of function during her own battle with the disease.
Dr. Trueman will be remembered as a compassionate and respected psychiatrist within the Interior Healthy Authority who dedicated eleven years of her life to helping her patients, right up until two months before her passing. She will be sorely missed by her young family, friends and colleagues. The UBC Department of Psychiatry wishes to send our sincerest condolences to the family and loved ones of Dr. Trueman during this profoundly difficult time.
If you wish to read her full obituary or offer support in honour of Dr. Trueman, please do so by visiting her Memorial Page here.