Please Share: UBC Mood Disorders Centre is now recruiting for a new clinical trial examining the efficacy of adjunctive cannabidiol (CBD)

Please Share: UBC Mood Disorders Centre is now recruiting for a new clinical trial examining the efficacy of adjunctive cannabidiol (CBD)

The UBC Mood Disorders Centre is now recruiting for a new clinical trial that is examining the efficacy of adjunctive cannabidiol (CBD) in treating bipolar depression.

The research team is looking for individuals who are diagnosed with bipolar disorder type I or II, currently taking a mood stabilizer and/or atypical antipsychotic and are currently experiencing a depressive episode.

Participants visit the clinic for a screening visit and a baseline visit, as well as visits at weeks 2, 4, and 6 to complete clinical assessments with a study doctor, laboratory tests, and answer questionnaires. Eligible participants will receive either a placebo or 200-600mg of CBD to take daily for 6 weeks.

If you have any patients who are interested in participating, please contact the research coordinator at bipolar.research@ubc.ca or 604-822-8045.

FRAMES OF MIND Mental Health Film Series | Wednesday November 15 @ 7:00pm | The Cinematheque

A monthly film series promoting professional and community education on issues pertaining to mental health and illness. Presented by The Cinematheque and the Institute of Mental Health, UBC Department of Psychiatry. Screenings are generally held on the third Wednesday of each month at The Cinematheque, 1131 Howe St, Vancouver, BC.

Another Body

Film Description

As artificial intelligence increasingly marks our daily life in covert ways, deepfake technology might be one of its more disturbing capabilities. Taylor, a young engineering student and self-declared ​“nerd,” has her life turned upside down after her face is digitally altered to appear on the body of a porn actress. Her face is not the only thing exposed on a popular porn website—her real name and hometown are also visible. Using deepfake imaging software, online bullying is taken to the extreme and soon Taylor realizes she’s not alone. As Taylor and others seek justice, it’s clear that laws have yet to catch up to this new frontier of sexual harassment. Expertly weaving Taylor’s story with insight from activists and legal experts, Another Body exposes toxic masculinity in dark recesses of the internet and the devastating impact that AI can have on gender-based violence and bodily autonomy at large.

Special Jury Award, Documentary Feature
SXSW 2023

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“A riveting, upsetting search for justice for victims of deepfake pornography … Essential viewing.” — John Fink, The Film Stage

“Eye-opening … Taking a sensitive, respectful, but necessarily frank approach to this challenging subject, Another Body makes a compelling call to action.” — Nikki Baughan, Screen International


Post-screening Discussion:

Post-screening discussion with Dr. Jason Winters, Dr. Carolin Klein, and Director Reuben Hamlyn. Moderated by Dr. Harry Karlinsky, Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia

**Update**
The Honourable Niki Sharma, Attorney General of British Columbia, will be joining the post-screening discussion! Please don’t miss it!

About the Panel:

Dr. Jason Winters is a registered psychologist and co-founder and co-director of the West Coast Centre for Sex Therapy. He is renowned for his work in the areas of atypical sexual interests and problem sexual behaviours, often called sex and pornography addiction. He has been invited to participate in this panel due to his expertise in the area of pornography and its effects on consumers.

Dr. Carolin Klein is a registered psychologist and co-founder and co-director of the West Coast Centre for Sex Therapy. Her clinical work involves assisting individuals, couples, and other partnership configurations to build and strengthen sexual and relational intimacy; overcome sexual shame, pain, and anxiety; and bring more joy and curiosity into sexuality. She is also involved in training graduate students and other professionals in evidence-based sex therapy.

Reuben Hamlyn is a New York-based writer, director, and editor from London, England. His first feature as a director, Another Body, was selected for the Sundance Institute’s Catalyst Lab and Hot Docs Dealmaker, and premiered in competition at SXSW 2023. His previous short film, Roger, was commissioned by the BFI and BBC Arts to open their Born Digital season in 2019 and won multiple awards.

Dr. Harry Karlinsky, the Series Director of Frames of Mind and a Clinical Professor in the UBC Department of Psychiatry, has a longstanding commitment to professional and public education. He has presented nationally and internationally on topics ranging from Alzheimer’s disease to information technology to narrative medicine to PTSD and to the use of films in health care education.


Want to be a regular at Frames of Mind screenings on the third Wednesday of every month? Subscribe to the email list and be the first in line for tickets!

Congratulations to Dr. Harry Karlinsky, Recipient of the 2023 ACPC Annual Award for Creative Professional Activity!

The Association of Chairs of Psychiatry in Canada (ACPC) Annual Award for Creative Professional Activity highlights the importance of creative professional activity in Canadian Departments of Psychiatry by rewarding exceptional contributions.

Congratulations to this year’s winner: Dr. Harry Karlinsky, Clinical Professor and a clinical faculty member in the UBC Department of Psychiatry for over thirty years. Dr. Karlinsky was recognized for his role as the driving force behind numerous initiatives that have integrated mental health education and advocacy into various creative arts platforms, in order to engage fellow clinicians, healthcare providers, and broader audiences that include patients, their families, and the general public.

Notable contributions have included his roles as the founder and ongoing director of the long-running and award-winning Frames of Mind Mental Health Film Series since its inception in 2002, and founder and ongoing director of the Canadian Psychiatric Association’s CPA-at-the-Movies Series, an extremely well received initiative which over the last 15 years has been a highlight of the annual CPA conferences.

Additionally, as an alumnus of Simon Fraser University’s Writers’ Studio, Dr. Karlinsky himself has made original contributions to Canadian literature, producing two highly acclaimed works wherein his knowledge and expertise as a psychiatrist are woven into rich, compelling storytelling. In the first of his two celebrated novels, The Evolution of Inanimate Objects: The Life and Collected Works of Thomas Darwin (1857-1879), he tackled the fine line separating creativity and madness by blending historical fact and fiction in a reimagining of the tragically short life of Thomas Darwin. Of note, The Evolution of Inanimate Objects was one of 11 books longlisted for the prestigious Wellcome Trust Book Prize which celebrates books which illuminate the theme of health, illness, and medicine. Dr. Karlinsky’s second novel The Stonehenge Letters, was also well-received and followed a retired psychiatrist who uncovers a hidden history when seeking to determine why the famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud never received a Nobel Prize.

Over the last three decades, Dr. Karlinsky has done a superb job in leveraging creativity and artistic expression to broaden the lens through which the communities view mental health and addictions.

Congratulations once again to Dr. Karlinsky on this significant and well-deserved recognition!

Career Opportunity | Now Accepting Applications for a Re-entry Residency Position in Interior Health!

The UBC Department of Psychiatry will be funded yearly for 1 Re-entry Residency Position in Psychiatry in the Interior going forward.

This re-entry residency position comes with a 3-year Return of Service (ROS) contract with the Ministry of Health. This year, the ROS will be completed in the Interior Health Authority in British Columbia.

The application deadline for 2024/2025 is January 1st, 2024. Please review the full posting for this position for additional information regarding eligibility requirements and the application process.

For full details on the ROS commitment, please see the re-entry ROS contract templates and policy available on the Ministry of Health’s Re-entry webpage. Training for the Interior ROS position will occur in the Interior Psychiatry PGE Track for PGY2 and 3 with years 4 and 5 being flexible for training opportunities anywhere in the province, in Canada and even abroad if approved.

Liisa Galea

You are Invited: MAiD and Mental Disorders:  How did we get here? | Thursday November 9 @ 5:30pm

You are invited to attend an in-person / virutal talk on MAiD and Mental Disorders:  How did we get here? on Thursday November 9th, 2023 at 5:30pm. This talk will be presented by Sandra Martin, an award-winning journalist and a contributing writer for The Globe and Mail and the author of the critically acclaimed national bestseller, A Good Death: Making the Most of Our Final Choices

In-person: Diamond Health Care Centre, Vancouver. DHCC 1020 (lobby level)
Zoom: https://ubc.zoom.us/join
Meeting ID: 917-8725-3544
Passcode: 253544


Sandra Martin, an award-winning journalist and a contributing writer for The Globe and Mail, is the author of the critically acclaimed national bestseller, A Good Death: Making the Most of Our Final Choices.  Winner of the B.C. National Non-Fiction Award and a finalist for both the Dafoe Prize and the Donner Prize in Public Policy, A Good Death was named one of the best books of 2016 by The Globe and Mail, the CBC and several other media outlets. Margaret Atwood has called A Good Death “a timely and deeply felt account of assisted dying:  the histories, the issues” and included it on her list of best books about death and dying. 

A Good Death was published in a revised paperback edition in 2017 with a new chapter on Bill C-14, Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying law (MAID). She has written about her ongoing MAiD research in The Globe and Mail and other publications. Including The Literary Review of Canada. Her essay, Death of an Author: the weirdest man I never met, about MAiD activist John Hofsess was a finalist for a national magazine award in 2023.

She has won two National Magazine Awards, several honourable mentions, the Fiona Mee Award for literary journalism, and a National Newspaper Award nomination for feature writing. As a journalist for The Globe and Mail, she was known for her books and arts coverage and especially for her perceptive, deeply researched and vividly written obituaries.  Many of them formed the basis of her essays on the history, culture and future of obituaries in her book, Working the Dead Beat: 50 lives that changed Canada.  Long-listed for the Charles Taylor Prize and named a Globe one hundred book for 2012, it was published in paperback under the title Great Canadian Lives:  A Cultural History of Modern Canada Through the Art of the Obit.   

Her public policy initiatives about race and gender in the workplace won the Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy from The Toronto Star. She has also been awarded a Canadian Journalism Fellowship to study at the University of Toronto, named the Pelham Edgar lecturer at Victoria College, and awarded The Harvey Southam Lectureship in Creative non-fiction at the University of Victoria.

As a literary journalist, Martin edited the Oberon Best Short Stories and Coming Attractions anthologies with writer David Helwig, bringing writers such as Rohinton Mistry, Bonnie Burnard and Frances Itani to a wider audience.

As a wide-ranging non-fiction writer, she is the co-author of three books, including Rupert Brooke in Canada and Card Tricks: Bankers, Boomers and the Explosion of Plastic Credit, which was short-listed for the Canadian Business Book Award in 1993. She has written for most magazines (past and present) in this country including Toronto Life, The Walrus, Saturday Night and Queen’s Quarterly.

As a memoirist, she conceived, commissioned and edited The First Man in My Life: Daughters Write About Their Fathers, a best-selling anthology of personal narratives about one of our most complicated and least explored relationships. She also contributed the essay, “Visitation Rights,” to the anthology. 

Among other memoir essays, she contributed “Snapshots” to the second volume of Dropped Threads, “Travels in The New South Africa” to Why Are You Telling Me This: Eleven Acts of Intimate Journalism, “Visitation Rights” and “Road Trips” to Great Expectations: Twenty-Four True Stories About Childbirth.

Martin is currently working on a book about aging.

SAVE THE DATE! UBC Department of Psychiatry Festive Celebration | Friday December 15th @ The Arbutus Club

Please mark your calendars for the UBC Psychiatry Festive Celebration to take place on Friday December 15th at 5:30pm at The Arbutus Club! Stay tuned for more details and an RSVP request to follow in the coming weeks.

To save this in your Outlook calendar, click on the link and remember to click “Save & Close.” If you use another calendar, please save the date manually.

All Department members are invited, including faculty, staff, fellows, students, residents and volunteers, so we hope you will join us at our annual end-of-the-year celebration!

Call for Nominations: Killam Teaching Prizes 2024 | Deadline: Feb 1, 2024, 12:00pm

** Sent on behalf of Dr. Sophia Frangou, Associate Head – Research, UBC Department of Psychiatry**

Dear UBC Psychiatry Faculty,

Killam Teaching Prizes 2024

Faculty of Medicine Internal Deadline:Thursday, February 1, 2024 12:00pm

UBC Killam Teaching Prizes are UBC’s most prestigious teaching awards. The UBC Killam Teaching Prizes recognize excellence in teaching in the medical and science undergraduate programs, residency programs, school and graduate programs within the Faculty of Medicine. The Prizes are awarded annually, and are supported by the UBC Killam Endowment Fund.

Overview | Nomination Form | Previous Recipients

Please contact Ms. Laura Gillis, Office of the Vice Dean, Education, at laura.gillis@ubc.ca if you have any questions at all.

Sincerely,

Dr. Sophia Frangou, MD, Ph.D., FRCPsych, FRCPC
President’s Excellence Chair in Brain Health
Associate Head – Research
Professor of Psychiatry

I acknowledge, with gratitude, that I live and work on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil- Waututh) Nations.

ACTION REQUIRED: Psychiatry IT – File Share Migration

PSYCHIATRY IT – FILE SHARE MIGRATION

WHY is it happening: Psych IT will be migrating mapped drive shares I: M: N: P: U: V: Y: to a new file server.


WHEN is it happening: 5:00 PM on Friday October 6 till 5:00 PM on Monday October 9

WHO it will affect: For all supported computers on our Psychiatry AD network (Computer joined to our AD Domain with a computer name PSYTnnnn).

WHAT you need to do:

  1. LOG OUT from your Windows account after saving and closing all documents you have opened from the share drive by 5:00 PM on Friday October 6.
  2. DO NOT MAKE ANY CHANGES to any files during the migration period from 5:00 PM on Friday October 6 till 5:00 PM on Monday October 9.
  3. REBOOT YOUR COMPUTER when returning to work on Tuesday.
  4. Once the reboot is complete, login and your share access should be automatically updated. Test by opening commonly accessed shared files.

If you have any issues, please kindly email psychiatry.it@ubc.ca or call us at 604-827-5695 (please leave a message if we are on another call).

Sincerely,

Simon Chong
Computer Systems Manager
UBC Department of Psychiatry

FRAMES OF MIND Mental Health Film Series | Wednesday October 18 @ 7:00pm | The Cinematheque

A monthly film series promoting professional and community education on issues pertaining to mental health and illness. Presented by The Cinematheque and the Institute of Mental Health, UBC Department of Psychiatry. Screenings are generally held on the third Wednesday of each month at The Cinematheque, 1131 Howe St, Vancouver, BC.

All My Puny Sorrows

Canada 2021 (103min DCP)
Director: Michael McGowan
Wednesday October 18th @ 7:00pm
The Cinematheque (1131 Howe St)

Co-sponsored by the Canadian Psychiatric Association

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Film Description

Based on the novel by preeminent Canadian author Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows is a family drama about two sisters leading very different lives. Yoli (Alison Pill), a struggling writer, and Elf (Sarah Gadon), a successful concert pianist, are each uniquely impacted by the suicide of their father, a Mennonite patriarch. Their collective trauma reaches a critical point when Elf is hospitalized for a suicide attempt of her own. While Yoli challenges her sister’s wish to die, a sense of profound empathy, mutual respect, and deep love for one another shines through their joyful banter full of literary references and wry humour. Drawing on Toews’s real-life experience, the film raises the important and contentious issue—soon to be legal in Canada—of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) for individuals whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness.

“Measured and thoughtful … Where many films would use this [premise] as a springboard for a tedious moral treatise on a hot-button issue, All My Puny Sorrows keeps the focus commendably and non-judgmentally personal.” — Guy Lodge, Variety

“I love this movie … What [Michael McGowan] pulls off here is a miracle of tone … Yoli, Elf, and Lottie each need something, and Pill, Gadon, and Winningham each has precisely that thing to give.” — Johanna Schneller, The Globe and Mail


Post-screening Discussion:

Welcoming remarks by Dr. Lakshmi N. Yatham, Professor & Head, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia

Post-screening discussion with Dr. Derryck Smith and Dr. Tyler Black, facilitated by Dr. Alison Freeland. Moderated by Dr. Harry Karlinsky, Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia

About the Panel:

Dr. Lakshmi N. Yatham is a Professor and Head of the UBC Department of Psychiatry, and is also Director of the UBC Institute of Mental Health.

Dr. Alison Freeland is Board Chair of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, Vice President of Education, Academic Affairs and Patient Experience at Trillium Health Partners, and Associate Dean, Mississauga Campus, at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto. The focus of her clinical work is the care of people with serious mental illness and substance use disorders.

Dr. Derryck Smith has been an advocate for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) since the Sue Rodriguez case in 1994. He has testified in the Carter case 2014 and to parliament on Bills C-14 and C-7. He is a past board member of Dying with Dignity Canada and the World Federation of Right to Die Societies. He is an active member of the Canadian Psychiatric Association Committee on MAiD.

Dr. Tyler Black is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who works both at the University of British Columbia and BC Children’s Hospital, primarily in urgent and emergency cases. He is the author of the ASARI, a leading practice for suicide risk documentation and the co-author of HEARTSMAP, a psychosocial assessment tool for triaging health and social needs, as well as the co-author of the Clinical Handbook of Psychotropic Medications for Children and Adolescents. He has a primary research and teaching interest in suicide and suicidology, and has testified before both the House of Commons as well as the Canadian Senate regarding medical assistance in dying. He maintains a newsletter on suicidology at suicidology.substack.com.

Dr. Harry Karlinsky, the Series Director of Frames of Mind and a Clinical Professor in the UBC Department of Psychiatry, has a longstanding commitment to professional and public education. He has presented nationally and internationally on topics ranging from Alzheimer’s disease to information technology to narrative medicine to PTSD and to the use of films in health care education.


Want to be a regular at Frames of Mind screenings on the third Wednesday of every month? Subscribe to the email list and be the first in line for tickets!