We are pleased to welcome Dr. Jennifer Kouwenberg as the new Division Head Pediatrics Geography 2 & 3, effective March 1, 2021.
Dr. Kouwenberg completed medical school at UBC in 2008 and her Pediatric Residency at Queen’s in Kingston, Ontario in 2013. She continued to work through rural and remote areas in Ontario and Nunavut prior to returning to BC in 2016.
Exposure to the medical world in her early years from a patient perspective sparked an interest in medicine for Dr. Kouwenberg. Many positive experiences working with children and youth through her adolescence and early adult years propelled Dr. Kouwenberg’s interest to focus on work with child and youth, with focus on mental health and physical wellbeing.
In the practice of medicine Dr. Kouwenberg feels the most meaningful items include building trust and caring relationships with families through meaningful culturally aware engagement with parents children and youth. Enhancing team based care to support improved health delivery to families in need is her current focus, recognizing that child and youth physical and mental wellbeing is tightly related to family wellness, connectivity, attachment and health.
Dr. Kouwenberg’s professional interests include indigenous health, anxiety and interdependence of child/youth/family wellness and impact on medical and mental health, eating disorders. Some of her recent achievements include receiving a CPS award (Judith Hall). PQI work with families and infants affected by Neonatal abstinence syndrome at NRGH - project focused to increase rooming in for these vulnerable families, as standard of care for mom-baby dyads on perinatal. She also has a passion to unite women in medicine by helping to bring Nanaimo women physicians together through community building and opportunity for connection.
In the future Dr. Kouwenberg hopes to see an improved understanding of the impact of childhood experience, and the integration of family wellness, in the development of efficient care planning and wellness promotion for our community and society.
When not practicing medicine you will find Dr. Kouwenberg enjoying her time with her 3 boys and 3 dogs, keeping her and her husband busy with many adventures in the great outdoors throughout this beautiful place we call home.
‘I am thankful to live in this community, to call Nanaimo and Vancouver Island ‘home’, to feel a part of a collegial group of medical providers, specifically Pediatricians, to practice alongside and to share in collaboration . My ability to contribute to our community is directly dependent on the support of my family, to be patient when I cannot always be present for the important, (and less important) events that we find ourselves having to miss in order to provide necessary care to our patients.’ – Dr. Jennifer Kouwenberg