Dr. Peter Chan

Dr. Peter Chan is an adult, geriatric and consultation-liaison (psychosomatic) psychiatrist who is a fully qualified specialist in Psychiatry and subspecialist in Geriatric Psychiatry, as recognized by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. After his Psychiatry residency and with fellowship training at UBC, he entered practice in 1996 at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) and has treated many medically ill patients who suffer from psychiatric, pain, and/or addiction disorders in a variety of settings. He also has an office practice for treating opiate/opioid addicted patients. He is on active staff at VGH and UBC Health Sciences Centre, and teaches medical students, residents and fellows. He is involved in the undergraduate and postgraduate training committees. He is a full Clinical Professor in the Dept. of Psychiatry at UBC and leads the Dept’s Consultation-Liaison academic training program. He is a past-president of the Canadian Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine and a former board member of the Canadian Psychiatric Association (CPA).

Dr. Chan has a longstanding interest in Neurostimulation and originally trained in repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) from 2005-8 at various research-based clinics in the US and Canada. He attained the TMS certificate of competence (by written exam) in 2009 through the International Society of ECT and Neurostimulation (ISEN). Thereafter, he founded and headed the rTMS clinic for treating Depression at VGH beginning in 2009. This clinic utilized the standardized rTMS protocols to treat Depression, similar to rTMS clinics in the US, with good success. These results have been analyzed and will be submitted for scientific publication. Besides clinical care, this clinic also had a research component for Depression and PTSD, until the VGH clinic closed in 2016 due to the health authority’s decision defund rTMS. Dr. Chan is also recognized nationally for his involvement in the updating of the CPA’s Position Paper on ECT published in 2010, and the publications from the 2007-8 Canadian ECT Survey (CANECTS). He is working on implementing national ECT standards through the CANECTS group and exploring the possibility of national rTMS practice standards. He is currently the manager for the Neurostimulation program at VGH and UBCH, and was the former head of the Dept. of Psychiatry’s Quality Improvement committee.

Dr. Chan is active in the field of TMS, and is a member of both ISEN and the Clinical TMS Society. He has presented on Neurostimulation to local, provincial and national organizations. He has published research on TMS, amongst other research publications, and is a contributor/reviewer for the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry on Neurostimulation-related items.

As one of the founding members of this clinic, Dr. Chan brings plenty of clinical experience in treating patients who could benefit from rTMS. With updated rTMS training in Europe, he is positioned to help BrainStim Healthcare incorporate innovative techniques that have been developed recently, alongside implementing the well-established standardized protocols.

Publications on TMS:

CHAN P, FORBES I, WIESE B ET AL. "THE EFFECTIVENESS OF RTMS FOR MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDER: A RETROSPECTIVE STUDY AT A CANADIAN CENTRE", 2017 (TO BE SUBMITTED FOR PUBLICATION)

LEONG K, CHAN P, GRABOVAC A ET AL. "CHANGES IN MINDFULNESS FOLLOWING REPETITIVE TRANSCRANIAL MAGNETIC STIMULATION FOR MOOD DISORDERS" CAN J PSYCHIATRY. 2013 DEC;58(12):687-91.

LAM, R, CHAN, P., WILKINS-HO, M. AND YATHAM, L. REPETITIVE TRANSCRANIAL MAGNETIC STIMULATION (RTMS) IN TREATMENT-RESISTANT DEPRESSION: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS. CAN J PSYCHIATRY. 2008 SEP;53(9):621-31.