OPENetwork Board of Directors
Diane McIntosh
Founding Member. Chair of the Board of Directors
Dr. McIntosh obtained an undergraduate degree in pharmacy before completing her medical school training, 2-years of a pediatric residency and then an adult psychiatry residency. She is a clinical assistant professor at the University of British Columbia and has a community psychiatry practice.
Dr. McIntosh is extensively involved in providing continuing medical education programs to colleagues nationally and internationally, with a focus on rational pharmacology and the neurobiology of mood and anxiety disorders and ADHD. Every year, she delivers more than 200 lectures, always coming back to an essential, central theme: we must strive to improve the quality of care and the treatment options available for people diagnosed with a mental illness.
Dr. McIntosh is the co-founder of SwitchRx, the online psychotropic switching tool for prescribers and pharmacists. She is the co-founder of PsychedUp, a continuing medical education program that was developed to encourage the appropriate, confident, rational prescribing of psychiatric medications. She has published blogs in Psychology Today and the Huffington Post and Op-Eds for newspapers focusing on mental health issues. She is also the founder of We Do Matter, which advocates more compassionate care for psychiatric patients and their families.
Dr. McIntosh’s new book, This Is Depression: A comprehensive and compassionate guide for those who want to understand depression, was launched on October 10, 2019 and quickly became an Amazon Canada bestseller. It is written for those who have depression, for those who love someone who is depressed, and for anyone who wants to better understand the disorder.
Angela Nguan
Founding member. Member of the Board of Directors
Dr. Nguan is a family physician at the Telus Healthcare Centre in Vancouver. As a family medicine graduate from the University of British Columbia she was awarded the Morton and Irene Dodek Prize in Family Practice for compassion, care, and competence.
Dr. Nguan also holds a degree in Hons Biology and Hons Health Sciences in Occupational Therapy from McMaster University. She has been actively involved in the GP community including her previous work with the Shared Care Cardiology committee, Vancouver Division’s Residential Care group and the Mental Health and Addictions committee. She is currently on the Shared Care Respirology committee working with respirologists and GP colleagues to improve the delivery of care for patients across the Lower Mainland. She sits on the Advisory Council for the Dept. of Family and Community Medicine at Providence Health Care and is working on the Primary Care Community Connectedness Advisory Group for the development of the New St. Paul's hospital in Vancouver. As an educator she is on the CME on the Run committee through UBC CPD providing education for family physicians across British Columbia and was previously a coordinator for the Family Practice Teaching Rounds at Mount St. Joseph’s hospital.
Dr. Nguan has a special interest in geriatric medicine, urology, cosmetic dermatology and mental health. She is passionate about preventative health, wellness and positive psychology in a team based environment. She has three wonderful small children who keep her busy during her off work hours and enjoys being a mother and travelling on family holidays.
Margie Oakander
Founding member. Member of the Board of Directors
Dr. Oakander was raised in Calgary and completed undergraduate studies and residency at University of Calgary. She is a Clinical Associate Professor with the Department of Psychiatry at University of Calgary.
Margie is a consulting psychiatrist at Addictions and Mental Health NE Clinic where she is privileged to work with a dedicated multidisciplinary team of mental health care providers.
She is the Clinical Medical Director of Primary Care Liaison for the Calgary Region, which involves developing initiatives to improve mental health services and access for Family Medicine. She is part of the Southern Alberta Shared Mental Health Care program, collaborating with Family Physicians in the medical home around the mental health concerns of their patients and providing leadership as Clinical Medical Director to the program.
Margie consults at the Eastside Family Center in Calgary, where she is part of a team providing consultation in a unique walk –in counseling setting in a high needs area of the city. She has presented locally and aboard on topics related to walk-in single session solution focused therapy and has participated in publications on the topic.
Margie has been principal investigator in clinical trials in a variety of areas in Psychiatry and has recently been involved in Researcher initiated projects in her interest areas. Margie has a passion for teaching and one of the most fulfilling aspects of her career is teaching undergraduate medical students, Family Practice and Psychiatry residents and multidisciplinary colleagues.
Atul Khullar
Founding member. Member of the Board of Directors
Dr. Khullar is a psychiatrist and sleep specialist who specializes in the combined management of sleep, mood/anxiety and attention deficit disorders. He also has a strong focus on the interactions of obesity, sleep apnea and mental illness. Most recently, he has obtained expertise in the appropriate clinical use of medical cannabis in sleep and mental health disorders. He completed his medical school and residency at the University of Alberta as well as a sleep and mood/anxiety disorders fellowship at the University of Toronto. Part of his fellowship included the interactions between adolescent sleep and mood disorders and he has additional pediatric sleep medicine training at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Khullar is board certified in Psychiatry and Sleep Medicine in both Canada and the United States. He is also a fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Alberta. Actively involved in research and education, Dr. Khullar has given more than 500 invited presentations to public and professional audiences worldwide. He has chaired a number of national CME programs in his specialized areas and is involved in guideline development for the management of co-morbid sleep disorders both provincially and nationally. Currently he is the medical director of the Northern Alberta Sleep Clinic in Edmonton. Dr. Khullar is also a senior consultant on topics related to the interaction between mood, anxiety, attention and sleep for the Grey Nuns Hospital, the Edmonton Oilers, and MedSleep, a Canada-wide network of community sleep clinics. He has also worked with the Canadian Winter Olympic team in the past. In his spare time, he takes road trips around the world to explore his interest in various sports as well as 20 th century political and social history, specifically World War II and the Korean War.
Denis Vincent
Founding member. Member of the Board of Directors
Edmonton based, trilingual family doctor with 30 years of experience in both rural and urban practice. I have grown a special interest in mental health as it presents in family practice, especially mood disorders and adult ADHD. I believe in building strong relationships with specialist colleagues by providing effective co-management of patients in shared care. I am committed to a sustainable public health care system, through innovation, entrepreneurship and compassion. I am founder of EZReferral, a cloud based service offering easy 3-way communication for health care professionals AND their patients. No patient should be sitting on the sideline waiting for a phone call or a fax to get through. No one should have to worry about falling through the cracks.
Rod Elford
Founding member. Member of the Board of Directors
Dr. Elford is a family physician with over 25 years of clinical experience. He is an international expert in the use of information and communications technology in health care, including being the first physician in the world to do a Clinical Fellowship in Telemedicine (1995-97). He has 15 years of experience as a provincial Medical Director for large health care systems. Currently, he is the Medical Director for the Health Quality Council of Alberta, which works to promote patient safety and quality health care in the province. Clinically, he works as a family physician at the Copeman Healthcare Centre in Calgary, which delivers preventive health and chronic disease management services in a patient-focused, inter-disciplinary environment supported with the latest technology. He also works as a health IT consultant and strategic advisor for Telus Health / Medisys Health Group. Over the years, Dr. Elford has authored a number of academic papers, numerous reports, a couple of books and given hundreds of presentations to local, provincial, national and international audiences. No matter where he has lived or worked, he has always tried to bring innovation and improvement into the health system.
Charbel Bouezz
Founding member. Member of the Board of Directors and Treasurer
Dr. Bouezz is a Pharm-D and holds an MBA from Paris.
A trilingual pharmaceutical executive with over 25 years of experience across North America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Throughout his career, Dr. Bouezz held executive leadership roles in sales, marketing, finance, O2C, auditing, patient support programs, commercial operations, strategic partnerships, business development, and lean six sigma.
In 2016, he left the corporate world to start his own adventure. He founded a consulting and event management group. He currently consults for pharma & teleco companies on patients' support programs, operations optimization, marketing strategy, and business development. He also helps start-up businesses develop strategic business plans and guides them through their execution.
Along with Dr. McIntosh, he co-founded PsychedUp, an NFP organization devoted to improving patient care by providing high-quality, evidence-informed psychiatric education to healthcare professionals and to patients, families, and the Canadian public.