Dr. Valerie Primeau, MD, FRCPC

Valerie Primeau, MD, FRCPC, is a bilingual psychiatrist practicing in North Bay, Ontario. Passionate about quality improvement, leadership, and advocacy, she has served as the Medical Director of the Department of Psychiatry and Head of Service for Community Mental Health and Addictions at North Bay Regional Health Centre (NBRHC). Dr. Primeau has played a key role in the treatment of concurrent disorders, including leading NBRHC’s implementation of medically-supervised withdrawal management. She also led the rural implementation of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Integrated Care Pathway for treating alcohol use disorder and depression. Dedicated to serving vulnerable populations, Dr. Primeau is the physician lead for the Rapid Access Addiction Medicine (RAAM) clinic and the Early Psychosis Intervention (EPI) program. She contributed to the Ontario Health EPI Task Group and participated in the EPI-SET research project with CAMH, which aimed to expand the NAVIGATE evidence-based treatment model for EPI across Ontario. She was the recipient of the NOAMA Clinical Innovation Opportunities Funding for a research project on Substance use stigma among first responders and emergency department staff. A committed advocate for medical education, Dr. Primeau has presented at numerous provincial and national conferences. She has served on the Ontario Health Alcohol Use Disorder Quality Standard Advisory Committee and was the Clinical Lead for the Withdrawal Management Standards with Addictions and Mental Health Ontario (AMHO). She is an active member of the Executive Committee of the Ontario Psychiatric Association (OPA), the Policy Committee of the Canadian Society of Addiction Medicine (CSAM), and the Section of Addiction Psychiatry at the Canadian Psychiatric Association (CPA). She is a founding board member, treasurer and annual conference co-chair of the Canadian Academy for Addiction Psychiatry (CAAP).