The Department of Medicine is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Cheryl Holmes as Head, Division of Critical Care Medicine effective July 1, 2020.
Dr. Holmes is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Medicine. She has practiced medicine for 34 years, first as a full-care family physician and then as an intensivist/critical care physician. Dr. Holmes has extensive administrative and leadership experience. She was the Medical Director, Critical Care, at Kelowna General Hospital from 2006 to 2014. In 2007, she founded and served as the first President of the BC Society of Critical Care Medicine. She has been the Associate Dean, Undergraduate Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine since 2017. Previously, she served as Interim Assistant Dean, Curriculum and before that Site Director for the Year 3 Clerkship at the Southern Medical Program in Kelowna.
Dr. Holmes obtained her MD from UBC in 1984, and after ten years of general practice, she enrolled in Internal Medicine at UBC and went on to complete a Critical Care fellowship. In 2013, Dr. Holmes completed a Masters of Health Professions Education at the University of Illinois in Chicago, earning Best Thesis for her work entitled Harnessing the Hidden Curriculum; a Four Step Competency Approach. In 2015 she received the Canadian Association for Medical Education (CAME) Certificate of Merit Award.
Dr Holmes has made significant scholarly contributions to our understanding of vasopressin in septic shock. In collaboration with the Centre for Education Scholarship at UBC, her current research program in medical education is in the qualitative realm of the hidden curriculum, the learning environment and professional identity formation of medical students.
Please join me in congratulating Dr. Holmes on her appointment as Head, Division of Critical Care Medicine in the Department of Medicine and wishing her all the best in her new role.
At this time, we would also like to express our heartfelt thanks to Dr. Najib Ayas, who is stepping down as Head, UBC Division of Critical Care Medicine for his service to the Division and Department in that role.
Sincerely,
Anita Palepu, MD, MPH, FRCPC, MACP
Professor and Eric W. Hamber Chair
Head, Department of Medicine
University of British Columbia
Associate Editor, Annals of Internal Medicine