Dr. Theresa Newlove
At Children’s and Women’s, and in keeping with PHSA’s vision, mission, values and mandate, optimizing health care outcomes for our patients is a priority. In order to achieve this, we need to collectively foster a workplace culture that supports leaders, physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, and staff in the rewarding, yet often challenging, work they do every day.
To support this, I am pleased to announce that Dr. Theresa Newlove is taking on the newly created role of Director of C&W Workplace Wellness, Culture and Experience effective July 1, 2019. In her new role, Theresa will report to Sarah Bell, Executive Director, Children’s and Women’s Mental Health, and Interim Chief Nursing Officer, Head Interprofessional Practice.
Prior to joining BCCH in 2005, Theresa completed her residency and fellowship in clinical psychology at University of Texas Health Science Center. After practicing in Texas for a number of years she took a clinical and leadership role at the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital in Scotland. Upon returning to Vancouver, Theresa’s clinical practice has focused on medical psychology, providing consultation liaison services to inpatient units and ambulatory clinical care at both Sunny Hill Health Centre and Children’s and Women’s Oak Street campus.
Over the last seven years in her role as department head, psychology, Theresa has demonstrated her leadership in a range of patient- and provider-focused initiatives. Her passion for supporting best health care outcomes has been directed at supporting psychological health and safety in the workplace. She has led proactive initiatives like “Tea@3” resiliency rounds that provide front-line staff with the opportunity to discuss care challenges and receive support on an ongoing basis. Along with colleagues from psychology, ethics and social work, she has been responsive to the needs of staff by providing crucial support when critical incidents arise by coordinating many post-event debriefs and providing one-on-one support to staff members. For the past three years, Theresa has also been engaged in work to understand how physicians manage workplace stress and burnout and strategies to mitigate this. She has provided ongoing formal teaching and informal support to enhance authentic communication strategies, trauma-informed practice, and collaborative partnership with families. Theresa has been recognized for her collaborations and partnerships in the organization with a PHSA+ Award in 2017.
In her new role, Theresa will work with staff and physicians on initiatives to improve and evaluate workplace experience and culture. She will collaborate with other PHSA wellness and human resource leaders to enhance our work environment so our people can realize their full potential in a psychologically healthy and safe workplace. In addition, Theresa will also work closely with C&W leaders to help us collectively shift mindsets and behaviours that are barriers to more positive, productive working relationships.
This role is foundational to creating a culture of excellence at C&W: a culture where people are appreciated, have a sense of community and belonging, and where their challenging work to deliver safe and high quality patient care is understood, supported and nurtured.
Source: Email sent from Susan Wannamaker (Announcement: Director of C&W Workplace Wellness, Culture and Experience), June 7, 2019.
Dr. Dzung Vo comes to BC Children’s as a specialist in adolescent medicine from North Carolina. American by birth and training, he came to Canada in 2010 to take a post at BC Children’s and has not looked back since. “It was a difficult move”, he says, “but I’m glad to live in Vancouver and Canada”. Professionally, Dr. Vo has a deep passion for mindfulness practice, and attends retreats once or twice every year to restore his mind and spirit. Furthermore, Dr. Vo is passionate about young people, and the treatment of the adolescence population. “Adolescents are an invisible population. Pediatric systems are not designed for them because they are focused on younger children, and adult systems are not designed for them either, so they are lost in the gap between the systems.” For him, addressing this gap is critical, as investing in and guiding young people will make a huge difference in their lives. This remains an important way to pay diffidence to society and future generations.