IN MEMORIAM: Dr. Raymond Au, Clinical Instructor | UPDATE: Memorial fund established

Dear Department Members,

I am deeply saddened to announce the sudden and unexpected passing of Dr. Raymond Au on Tuesday December 17, 2024. As many of you know, Dr. Au was a highly respected psychiatrist at Richmond Hospital and a long-serving clinical faculty member in the UBC Department of Psychiatry since 2004.

Amongst his peers, Dr. Au was renowned for his extensive knowledge and expertise in evidence-based therapies to treat a wide range of mental health conditions. Dr. Au’s many patients benefitted from his attentive and truly compassionate approaches to mental health, and his care and concern for people meant he would often take on a huge amount of workload, providing much-needed coverage for psychiatry in the emergency department, as well as the Psychiatric Assessment Unit and the Richmond Mental Health Team.

Dr. Au was not only extremely hard-working but also passionate and deeply committed to his profession. As a testament to the quality of care he provided, Dr. Au was the recipient of a VCH People First Award in 2017 and a nominee for a 2023 RHPS Peer Recognition Award under the category of “Professionally Outstanding.” Over the last 20 years as a valued UBC Psychiatry member, Dr. Au routinely taught PGY-2s in Psychiatric Interviewing in the Emergency Room, and provided clinical supervision to countless residents. By all accounts, he was an excellent and enthusiastic instructor and his teaching evaluations were always exceedingly positive.

The passing of Dr. Au is a significant loss to the UBC Psychiatry Department, the mental health care team at Richmond Hospital, and the mental health community in the region and beyond. He was an outstanding clinician who will be remembered for his tireless dedication to his practice, and for his genuine care, warmth and generosity toward his many colleagues and friends, patients, mentees and students. On behalf of the UBC Department of Psychiatry, I send my sincerest condolences to the family and loved ones of Dr. Au during this difficult time.

UPDATE:

A celebration of life has been planned for Dr. Raymond Au on January 4th. The family wishes to extend an invitation to psychiatrists, Department members, and friends of Dr. Au to attend.

Sincerely,

Dr. Lakshmi N. Yatham, MBBS, FRCPC, MRCPsych (UK), MBA (Exec)                       
Professor and Head, UBC Department of Psychiatry
Director, Institute of Mental Health, UBC
Regional Head and Program Medical Director, VCH/PHC

The UBC Department of Psychiatry Administration Office 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).