Message from the Chair/Department Head
Chair/Department Head
Dr. P. Hall
Chair/Department Head of Psychiatry
Welcome to the Department of Psychiatry. Psychiatry at Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry is a dynamic department dedicated to providing person-centered care, innovative education, and future-focused research.
Our clinical program is committed to serving people with mental health needs throughout their lifespan and across southwest Ontario. Patients are at the center of all that we do. Our clinicians are devoted to helping patients regain control of their mental health and engaging in their communities. We provide compassionate, expert care in the assessment and treatment of disorders of addiction, anxiety, autism, eating behaviors, forensics, geriatrics, mood, personality, post-traumatic stress and psychosis. We serve patients throughout the continuum of care: from emergency services, inpatient stays, outpatient clinics, to community reintegration. Working from a framework of continuous quality improvement, we believe in partnering with our patients to learn how to best serve their needs. By forging connections with our community partners, we strive to provide care when and where patients need it.
Dedicated to life-long learning and the primacy of education, we provide a robust educational platform for undergraduate, post-graduate, and faculty learners. Our undergraduate program introduces medical students to the privilege of working with patients with psychiatric disorders and their underlying psychopathophysiology. Our faculty choose to work at Schulich to teach the next generation of psychiatry leaders. With programs in child and adolescent, general adult, and geriatric psychiatry, our trainees learn from knowledgeable faculty who model providing state-of-the-art care along with engaging in cutting edge research. To ensure that our faculty remain current with evidence-informed best practices, we provide a multi-layered and rich faculty development program.
Basic science and clinical translational research occurs with collaborators at Robarts Research Institute and Lawson Health Research Institute. Pioneering investigators work across modalities and programs to create and disseminate new knowledge. Schulich psychiatry is proud of its ground-breaking and bar-setting work in basic science, developmental disorders; early identification of mood, epidemiology, anxiety, and psychotic disorders; meditation; operational stress disorders; seizure magnetic stimulation; and zero suicide.
Our department is strong because our people. Our department is replete with passionate, dedicated individuals with creative talents from diverse backgrounds. I am proud to work alongside of such impressive individuals and to be part of the Schulich Psychiatry family.
Patricia Hall, M.D.
Dr. Patricia Hall was appointed to the Department of Psychiatry as: Chair (Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University) and Department Head (London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) and St. Joseph’s Health Care London).
The positions are effective December 1, 2025 to November 30, 2030.
Dr. Hall completed her MD at the University of Ottawa in 2004 and completed her Psychiatry residency at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, in 2009. In 2013, she completed her second Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada certification in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (CAP).
Dr. Hall has served as Chair of the Division of CAP and CAP Site Lead at LHSC since 2020.
Since 2023, she has served as Interim Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Western and Interim Department Head of CAP at LHSC.
A nationally recognized leader, Dr. Hall established the first CAP Subspecialty Residency Program at Western – one of the first in Canada – and served as the Program Director for ten years. Dr. Hall has participated in the Royal College CAP Specialty Committee, the Royal College Competency Based Medical Education Working Group, the Education Committee for the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (CACAP), the Association of Professors for CAP and was a founding member of the CAP Coordinators of Psychiatric Education.
Clinically, Dr. Hall has been a transformational leader in child and youth mental health services across southwestern Ontario. Since 2012, she has held progressive medical leadership roles, leading multiple system redesign and quality improvement initiatives. Notable achievements include expanding inpatient and outpatient capacity, establishing a virtual regional CAP service and developing an interprofessional emergency mental health care pathway.
Currently, Dr. Hall is a site co-investigator on a national Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)-funded research project examining children's mental health in paediatric emergency rooms and she is a co-principal investigator on a Children’s Health Research Institute (CHRI)-funded study looking at nature prescribing for youth with depression. She has earned national recognition from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (2019) and CACAP (2020). She has received Schulich Medicine & Dentistry Awards of Excellence in Postgraduate Education (2014, 2020) and Mentorship (2023), along with numerous departmental awards for teaching and faculty support.
Dr. Hall looks forward to working collaboratively with all members of the Department to best support clinical and departmental operations, ensure the optimal functioning of the Department and advance research, education and clinical care.
