CPA 2020 Virtual Conference – Welcome Letter from the Chairs

Dear Colleagues,

We are looking forward to hosting the Canadian Psychiatric Association’s first ever Virtual Annual Conference on October 23rd and 24th, 2020.

In the spirit of moving to a fully virtual event, we will kick-off the conference with a keynote plenary entitled Virtual Mental Health Care: Current and Future Practice delivered by national experts across the country including Dr. Allison Crawford, Dr. Matthew Chow and Dr. Loei Wozney. Further, we are happy to deliver a number of workshops focused on the provision of virtual mental health care from a variety of national experts across Canada. The following day we will have another keynote plenary session entitled Are There Therapeutic Benefits of Cannabinoid Products in Adult Mental Illness? delivered by Dr. Phil Tibbo, Dr. Nathan Kolla and Dr. Romina Mizrahi. After the plenaries, each day will be broken into two sections for concurrent presentations in which there are a diverse and broad range of topics. We are also very much looking forward to hosting a daily virtual exhibition hall and an ePoster session at the conference this year.

One of the other significant changes is that the conference has been reduced from a three-day conference with optional pre-conference workshops to a two-day conference. As such, we have strived to make every moment of this conference to be as high-quality and valuable for all of our delagates. A very important part of every CPA Annual Conference is the professional and social networking and we have ensured that there are dedicated times during the conference for attendees to connect with each other virtually.

We will also be delivering our annual clinical update courses delivered by national experts from the Canadian Academy of Geriatric Psychiatry, Canadian Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, and Canadian Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine. Each course will focus on new treatment updates and recent advances in each of these important specialty areas.

The CPA’s first Virtual Annual Conference is set to be quite exciting and to provide another exceptional education program and networking opportunity with colleagues across the country. We hope to see you online in October for what promises to be a thought-provoking and memorable conference!

Sincerely,

Sanjeev Sockalingam, MD, MHPE, FRCPC, FAPM
Chair, Annual Conference Program Subcommittee
Michael Butterfield, MSc, MD, FRCPC
Associate Chair, Annual Conference Program Subcommittee