The Department and the team

We are recruiting a Clinical Academic Psychiatry Fellow for the 2025-26 academic year. This opportunity is available through the research-intensive Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Rehabilitation within the future Arthur JE Child Comprehensive Cancer Centre, Cancer Care Alberta (CCA) and the Division of Psychosocial Oncology, Department of Oncology in the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary. Psychosocial Oncology services in CCA are provided by a team of transdisciplinary professionals dedicated to enhancing quality of life and addressing culturally sensitive psychosocial and psychiatric issues of individuals affected by cancer and their family members The team provides expert mental health care across the trajectory of cancer care, from diagnosis, through oncologic treatment, throughout survivorship, and for individuals obtaining non-curative treatment. The Department of Psychosocial Oncology provides clinical assessment and intervention in individual, couples, family, and group modalities within a rich team environment and is a leader in world-class research. Please see the Cancer Care Alberta website for service-related information: https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/cancer/cancer.aspx

Fellowship Description

We are offering the Psychiatric Psychosocial Oncology Fellowship at the Arthur JE Child Comprehensive Cancer Centre for a final year psychiatry resident or a licenced psychiatrist looking for specialization in Psychiatric Oncology. Our team of psychiatrists practice from a biopsychosocial perspective and have opportunities for specialized interventions including consultation, complex psychopharmacology practice, individual and group psychotherapies, research, and education. The Fellow will work closely with interdisciplinary teams, building professional networks in oncology, and potentially providing supervision and/or education for medical students, psychiatry residents, and interdisciplinary learners. We continue to work towards integrating a greater understanding of how best to enhance cultural humility and care for minoritized groups.

Educational Objectives:

At the end of training, the psychosocial oncology fellow will be able to:

• Provide in- and out-patient culturally sensitive psychiatry consultation and psychiatric care of patients with cancer and their primary caregivers.
• Demonstrate effective collaborative care with oncology and psychosocial clinicians for patients with cancer at all stages of their disease trajectory.
• Provide effective psychopharmacological treatments attentive to treatments for medical co-morbidities for patients with cancer
• Develop communication expertise in addressing the psychosocial concerns of advanced cancer patients obtaining non-curative treatments for cancer and their primary caregivers.
• Convey familiarity with the psychosocial oncology literature regarding models of psychosocial care. Identify and develop a research or curriculum project to address in a year.

Research or Education Project

The fellow will have 30% of their time protected for research and/or education. There are numerous opportunities to work in transdisciplinary research teams with supervision of an independent project. Potential areas of research related to cancer care may include mood disorders, cancer related fatigue, trauma presentations related to cancer experiences, consultation-liaison psychiatry with specific cancer-related considerations, psychiatric aspects of palliative care for individuals and their families with metastatic cancer and development or implementation of evidence-based therapeutic interventions.

Ongoing research includes interventions for individuals with cancer such as the Managing Cancer and Living Meaningfully (CALM), Fear of cancer Recurrence Therapy (FORT), mindfulness-based interventions, and digital story telling group interventions, psychedelic treatments and/or psychedelic assisted therapies. Opportunities to develop innovative education curricula include seminars for psychiatry and palliative care residents and medical students in consultation- liaison psychiatry with a focus on cancer care and palliative care; psychotherapy interventions for individuals with cancer and their family members.

Research mentorship and guidance is provided within the research-intensive Division of Psychosocial Oncology, Department of Oncology, University of Calgary and the Department of Psychiatry, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary.

The primary supervisor will be Dr. Janet de Groot, MD, FRCPC, MSc. Additional supervisors will be available based on the fellow’s areas of interest. Remuneration is consistent with PARA rates for Oncology Fellows, currently at provincial rates for a PGY6 year.

Interested applicants are encouraged to contact Dr. de Groot ([email protected]) and Dr. Andrea Feldstain, Psychosocial Oncology Education Lead ([email protected]). Please send a current curriculum vitae and a cover letter conveying your interests and career directions.

Deadline for submission: May 15, 2024.

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