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VIU doctor receives prestigious honour for work on mental health and addictions

Nov 3, 2017 | 5:59 PM

NANAIMO — Nanaimo professor Dr. Cheryl Krasnick Warsh now has more letters following her name. She was recently selected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a prestigious award vaulting her into Canada’s oldest organization for the arts, humanities and sciences.

Warsh said it was an honour to be nominated by VIU for the position and to be accepted into it by her peers. “I didn’t realize how much I wanted it until I got it.”

She was recognized for her work delving into the history of health care in Canada and studying the everyday effects of additions and mental health issues.

“The thing about mental health and addictions is it’s literally living history because so much of addiction and mental illness is generational. Whether we’re talking about a generation of refugees, a generation of World War One and Two veterans who came back damaged and possibly alcoholic, a lot of those issues are passed on to their children and grandchildren.”

Though much of her research and work is cemented in the past, Krasnick Warsh said there’s many lessons to be learned these days, especially about the upcoming legalization of marijuana in Canada.

“You look back at Prohibition, you see what worked and what didn’t work. You look at what kind of laws you can pass that will not stigmatize people and whether you can really be responsibly legalizing it without making more access to treatment options.”

She said despite all the conversations currently happening in federal and provincial legislatures across Canada, there’s still a lot of unknowns.

“Since it’s been used under the table for so long, many of the health issues associated with it aren’t clear yet,” she said. “That’s because many people didn’t identify themselves as users to their physicians to the extent they were using, if they told them at all. So many of the really good studies that have to come out, haven’t been done yet.

“Hopefully it’s not a question of having to close the barn doors after the cows have gone.”

As the area grapples with the overdose crisis, Krasnick Warsh praised the wide availability of naloxone kits but said more more education and awareness about how to effectively treat addicts is needed.

She’s VIU’s first faculty member inducted into the Society, which will become official during a ceremony on Nov. 27.

 

spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit