Annual Report 2022-2023: Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Submitted by Dr. Sonu Gaind, Psychiatrist-in-Chief

The Sunnybrook Department of Psychiatry continued to demonstrate leadership in academics and clinical care in a range of areas. The excellence and impact of junior and senior staff, and learners and trainees based at Sunnybrook, was once again recognized through a wide variety of local, national and international awards for research, teaching and creative professional activity. Department staff members remain heavily engaged in university committees and leadership roles, and contributed to policy formation and public education through many different national and international mental health and professional organizations.

As we look ahead to the next few years, our Department is exploring and prioritizing future opportunities stemming from recent and pending changes and initiatives. We will achieve a significant milestone following a multiyear long journey with the opening of the Garry Hurvitz Brain Sciences Centre in 2024. Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (SHSC) and the Sunnybrook Brain Sciences Program recently completed their respective strategic plans, and the Department of Psychiatry will be undertaking a strategic planning exercise this year to help guide future goals in alignment with these plans, and with equity/diversity/inclusion principles. Amongst other priorities, we anticipate continuing to build on established strengths including:

1. Working closely with the Brain Sciences Program and interdisciplinary colleagues in the Harquail Centre as we move in to the new Hurvitz Brain Sciences building, and further building our world-class neuromodulation program providing bench to (and from) bedside translation/reverse translation research and clinical care.
2. Providing leadership, cutting edge research and policy guidance in suicidology.
3. Supporting and strengthening the work of the Frederick W. Thompson Centre, which remains unique and a leader in providing a range of services for OCD from individual and group therapy, to psychiatric consultations and care, to live in treatment.

We are appreciative of the foundational work and steady stewardship provided over the last decade by outgoing Chief of Psychiatry Dr. Ari Zaretsky, and I look forward to moving ahead with our team as we continue to build collaborations and innovate.