Alberta Medical Association Inducts New President and Welcomes Newly Installed Canadian Medical Association President

CALGARY, ALBERTA--(Marketwired - Sept. 22, 2016) - The Alberta Medical Association (AMA) will install its president for 2016 on Saturday, September 24, during its Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Representative Forum (RF) at the Hyatt Regency in Calgary. The AMA president serves a one-year term, in addition to one year each as president-elect and immediate past president.

Dr. Padraic E. Carr will officially assume the role of AMA president at the end of the RF meeting on Saturday afternoon. Dr. Carr is a psychiatrist in Edmonton. He received his medical degree in 1990 from the University of Alberta. In 1995 he became site leader/facility chief for Grey Nuns Community Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, a position he held for 11 years. He was president of the Professional Association of Resident Physicians of Alberta, the Alberta Psychiatric Association, the Grey Nuns Community Hospital Medical Staff, and representative to the Assembly of the American Psychiatric Association for Western Canada. More recently, he was president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association. He was recognized internationally in 2004 as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Carr has mentored and instructed medical students and residents for 21 years and is currently a clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Alberta.

Dr. Carr has been actively involved on many AMA committees, beginning in 1992 as the resident representative on the Committee on Constitution and Bylaws. He was a member of the Board of Directors from 2006-14 and has been a Representative Forum delegate since 2003. In his role as AMA president, Dr. Carr will serve as a member of the Board of Directors and on various committees.

During the AGM, current AMA President Dr. Carl W. Nohr will reflect on some of the highlights of his year as president and comment on the events and issues that have defined his term.

Dr. Nohr will also officially welcome the Canadian Medical Association's (CMA's) 149th President, Dr. Granger R. Avery, to Alberta. Dr. Avery became CMA president in August at the CMA's Annual General Meeting, held this year in Vancouver.

At the Lunch with the CMA President on Saturday, Dr. Avery will officially install Dr. Carr as the AMA president, address RF delegates and present the CMA Honorary Membership awards to Alberta physicians.

Dr. Avery, a world traveler in his youth, studied at the University of London in England and Auckland University in New Zealand before settling in British Columbia in 1973. Following additional training and a residency, he started a general practice in Port McNeil, which included emergency medicine, obstetrics, surgery and general anesthesia. He has been teaching at the University of British Columbia for over 35 years. He became president of the BC Medical Association (now Doctors of BC) in 1997. In that role, he improved rural physician recruitment in BC and authored the "Wait List" system, which recorded the number of patients awaiting surgery and diagnostic care, now a national initiative. Recognizing the need for a coordinated medical body to help manage issues faced by those practicing in rural environments, he created with government the first BCMA Collaborative Committee, which now manages BC's rural programs.

Dr. Avery has been involved in the CMA for many years in various roles and is a member of a range of associations and commissions. He has been working to improve the "continuum of care" - a physician's life cycle and the necessary system supports. In recognition of his contributions, Dr. Avery has received many awards including the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal for his services to rural medicine.

The Representative Forum is the governing body of the AMA. It includes representatives of all sectors of the profession - specialty sections, zones, students, residents, past presidents and deans of medicine. The RF meets at least twice a year to establish policy and set direction.