Paul Dagg

MD FRCPC, Program Medical Director, Mental Health and Substance Use Program, Interior Health Authority of British Columbia, Canada

Paul Dagg is currently the Program Medical Director for the Mental Health and Substance Use Program for the Interior Health Authority of British Columbia. He moved to BC in 2005 to establish the Tertiary Mental Health Services for the Interior that were being developed as a result of the regionalization of services from the Riverview Hospital, opening Hillside Centre in Kamloops, and leading Tertiary Mental Health Services until 2016. Prior to coming to the Interior, Dr. Dagg was the Director of Clinical Services at the Royal Ottawa Hospital. He provides psychiatric and neuropsychiatric care for people with refractory illness who are admitted to Hillside Centre, a tertiary acute inpatient facility that provides services to clients from throughout the province. He is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UBC and in 2013 was inducted as a member of the American College of Psychiatry.

Dr. Dagg has been heavily involved in postgraduate training in medicine and psychiatry. He is currently Chair of the Specialty Committee in Psychiatry for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and sits on the Education Committee of the Royal College, the committee that oversees all the educational activities of the College. He is a past member of the Accreditation Committee of the Royal College, and an experienced program surveyor for specialty medicine and surgery in Canada and in Saudi Arabia. He has previously served on the Examination Board in Psychiatry as Vice Chair and as a member. Until 2005, he was the Assistant Dean for Postgraduate Education in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, and Associate Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Psychiatry. In 1996, he was awarded, along with a colleague, the American College of Psychiatrists Award for Creativity in Psychiatric Education.

In addition to his administrative and educational responsibilities, he is on the editorial board for the Journal of Ethics in Mental Health and has written on this topic. He has an interest as well in service delivery models in mental health, cognition in schizophrenia, psychotherapy and the role of evidence in its practice, and in the treatment of adults with Pervasive Developmental Disorders and Asperger’s syndrome. He has recently led the development of an alternative competency based assessment system for psychiatrists trained outside of Canada. He has consulted on psychiatric service delivery in inpatient, outpatient, and community settings in cities across Canada. He is currently Chair of the Board of Governors of Thompson Rivers University, and is a member of the board of the British Columbia Forensic Psychiatric Services Commission. He was recently awarded the Duncan Graham Award of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada for life long contribution to medical education in Canada, the first person to receive this award whose professional work is outside of an urban university center.

Competing Interests/Conflicts of Interest: None to declare in the past year.