Christopher Kitamura
Dr. Christopher Kitamura is a geriatric psychiatrist at Baycrest Health Sciences. His work focuses on geriatric mental health education, with an emphasis on substance use disorders and clinician training across settings.
His academic activities involve developing and evaluating educational programs that address identified gaps in care and training. These initiatives span local, national, and international levels and include interdisciplinary and continuing professional education.
Research Synopsis
Dr. Kitamura’s scholarly work is centred on Creative Professional Activities (CPA), focusing on the development, evaluation and scaling of educational programs in geriatric mental health.
He is Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the International Geriatric Mental Health Education Network (I-GeMH), an international virtual education program engaging over 4,500 clinicians across more than 100 countries. The program combines monthly rounds with an active WhatsApp community to support ongoing knowledge exchange. He also developed the Canadian Geriatric Substance Use Disorders Curriculum for subspecialty residents. This program uses case-based teaching and has demonstrated improvements in learner knowledge and confidence, with participation from multiple training programs across Canada and interest from other disciplines.