Effective January 1, 2020 Dr. Carol-Ann Saari will assume the role of Medical Lead and Division Head, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Dr. Saari graduated from medical school at the University of British Columbia in 1998, followed by psychiatry residency with a sub-specialty in child psychiatry in 2005. She chose this specialty because she found the brain-mind interface fascinating and she loves working with children and adolescents and supporting them in their development to become well adjusted healthy adults.
Dr. Saari feels fortunate to practice medicine, as she has been able to explore clinical care, research, teaching, knowledge exchange, medical leadership and advocacy in her role as a physician. Medicine has helped her develop personally and professionally while providing financial security and a chance to feel she is bringing positive change to the world.
Dr. Saari has been clinically interested in children and youth with concurrent disorders and served as the Medical Director for Provincial Youth Concurrent Disorders program at BC Children’s Hospital (2008-2015). She advocated for this population at the Child and Youth Mental Health and Substance Use collaborative and as Co –Chair of the Canadian Collaborative Mental Health Conference (2019) with its theme of concurrent disorders. Dr. Saari presented to the Select Standing Committee on children and youth mental health and substance use and has written articles for the Sun newspaper for “This Changed my Practice” and been involved in concurrent disorders educational module development.
Dr. Saari served as President of the BC Psychiatric Association (2015-2017) and was the psychiatry representative to the Representative Assembly for Doctors of BC (2017-2019). Currently, Dr. Saari is the Child Psychiatry representative to the executive board of the BC Psychiatric association. Dr. Saari completed her executive MBA in health care in 2013.
When not practicing medicine, Dr. Saari can be found hiking, cycling, trail running and is a Zumba enthusiast.