Dr. Beverly Adams named Cumming School of Medicine vice dean

The Cumming School of Medicine (CSM) is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Beverly Adams, MD, as the new vice dean. The appointment takes effect on July 1.

Dr. Adams takes over the role I previously held as I begin my first term as dean. A competition to fill the role of senior associate dean, Education, will now get underway. 

Dr. Adams has served numerous senior leadership positions with the CSM, including senior associate dean, Education, since 2018. During her tenure, the CSM opened its Student Advocacy and Wellness Hub to all learners in the faculty for counselling on academics, career planning and mental health. The transdisciplinary Precision Health Program also launched, advancing professional development of current and future health care practitioners across Canada and internationally. The CSM entered an innovative partnership to help shape medical education in the United Arab Emirates and celebrated four Rhodes Scholars from within the faculty. 

Prior to that, she served as associate dean, Office of Professionalism, Equity and Diversity for more than a year, introducing Equity Guidelines at the CSM and the Network of Women in Medicine. She also led the collaboration of academic and clinical female faculty supports for women in all stages of their career, including the CSM’s first-ever summit on advancing professional success for women in medicine.

She is a professor and was the Head of the Department of Psychiatry from 2013 until 2018, after holding the position on an acting basis for more than a year. 

Dr. Adams continues to practice psychiatry and co-leads research on the use of magnetic resonance guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) to treat resistant Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

She completed residency training in psychiatry at the University of Alberta with a special interest in OCD and brain imaging. She has served as section chief in the Department of Psychiatry for In-patients, Consultation Liaison and Emergency in the Calgary Zone; director of the Psychiatry Residency Training Program from 2002 to 2010; and has been involved in clinical trials for schizophrenia since starting at the Foothills Medical Centre in 1993.

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Adams on her new role within the CSM’s senior leadership team.

Sincerely,

Todd Anderson, MD
(Incoming) Dean, Cumming School of Medicine
University of Calgary