Biography
Jacques Bradwejn was born in Montreal and grew up in France. He trained in medicine at the University of Sherbrooke and in psychiatry at McGill University. He completed a research fellowship in psychopharmacology at McGill University and in neuropsychopharmacology at the University of Montreal. He also completed the Wharton Certificate of Professional Development at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and has been a member of the Wharton Fellows Program. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and the recipient of a Honoris Causa Doctorate from Université Claude Bernard - Lyon 1.
Before serving as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa from 2006 to 2017, Dr. Bradwejn served as Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Ottawa, as Psychiatrist-in-Chief at the Royal Ottawa Hospital and as Head of Psychiatry of The Ottawa Hospital, positions he held concurrently for more than eight years. He also held positions at McGill University as Associate Professor of Psychiatry and at the University of Toronto as Professor of Psychiatry. He served as the Chair of the Association of Chairs of Psychiatry of Canada (ACPC) and President of the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology (CCNP).
He has been actively involved in psychiatric and mental-health research. His main research interest has been in the field of anxiety disorders, for which he gained an international reputation. He was the first to hypothesize that the neuropeptide cholecystokinin (CCK) has a role in the etiology of panic attacks in humans. He also carries out research on the integration of biological, psychological and spiritual approaches in the treatment of anxiety disorders, as well as on approaches used by complementary medicines. His research articles have appeared in high-impact journals such as Nature, Archives of General Psychiatry and the American Journal of Psychiatry.
He participated in the creation of a provincial association for anxiety disorders (Association Trouble Anxieux Quebec, ATAQ), as well as a national network for anxiety and mood disorders (Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments, CANMAT). He has also been a lead for anxiety treatment guidelines for Ontario. He has been active in the public dissemination of information on anxiety disorders and made more than 400 educational media appearances.
As Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, he is credited with the creation of an MD/PhD Program, the Medical Devices Innovation Institute, the School of Epidemiology, Public Health and Preventative Medicine, the Department of Innovation in Medical Education, a Program in Medicine and the Humanities and the University of Ottawa Skills and Simulation Center, one of the largest medical simulation centers in North America at the time of its opening. He has also championed the creation of a pan-university institute, the uOttawa Brain and Mind Research Institute, and has actively promoted and supported leadership training and wellness programs for physicians, professors and trainees in medicine.
From 2012 to 2014, he was Chair of the Board of Directors of the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC). He is a Visiting Professor at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and a Founding Dean of the Ottawa Shanghai Joint School of Medicine at Renji Hospital in Shanghai, which was created jointly by the University of Ottawa and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University and is the first initiative to introduce a Western medical curriculum in China. He has been an Overseas Foreign Expert (2015-2020) and certified as High-Level Talent (Category A) for the People’s Republic of China in 2019. He has participated in the development of mental-health services at Renji Hospital in Shanghai, where he also held a license for the practice of psychiatry. In 2020, he was the recipient of the China Ambassador to Canada Award in recognition of outstanding contribution to the promotion of China-Canada medical exchanges and cooperation.
For the majority of his time, he continues to practice psychiatry and to be involved in clinical research and leadership development in Canada and abroad, as well as the development of open-access, free psychological online health programs such as the Intrinsic Practice (intrinsicpractice.com).