Mental Health

At the Montreal General Hospital Foundation, we firmly believe that there is no health without mental health. It is part of our mission to support medical teams and help them in providing the highest level of patient care, in undertaking research into potential new treatments for the most serious and persistent psychiatric illnesses, and to train the next generation of care providers.

“If my experience has taught me anything, it is that depression comes in many shapes and sizes and everyone faces it differently. It’s comforting to know that I’m being helped with the latest technology in the field of mental health. As the result of those treatments and my desire to enjoy and get a lot more out of life, I’m doing better almost every day.”

– Steve, mental health patient at the Montreal General Hospital

Dr. Marie-Josée Brouillette

The Senator W. David Angus Award for Research into Major Psychiatric Diseases

My research focuses on the determinants of poor brain health in people living with HIV. I work on the development of computerized programs to improve brain health and quality of life in people with mood and cognitive challenges.

Dr. Howard Margolese

The Senator W. David Angus Award for Research into Major Psychiatric Diseases

My academic program at the MUHC focuses on researching new medication and treatments for psychiatric illnesses, with a focus on psychosis and schizophrenia. We try to better understand how, why and who accesses treatment for psychosis. We collaborate on research projects with other programs in the McGill First Episode Psychosis network at the Jewish General Hospital and at the Douglas to better understand this vulnerable patient population. We are interested in helping patients make the best treatment choices for themselves so that they accept treatment, make better lifestyle choices, reduce the risk of relapse and achieve better functional outcomes.

Dr. Gail Myhr

The Senator W. David Angus Award for Research into Major Psychiatric Diseases

The clinical and research activities of the MUHC Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) Unit continue at full capacity during these COVID-19 times, with the help of the Zoom teleconferencing platform. Our Unit has a fully integrated research component in all of its clinical and teaching activities. Ongoing data collection has resulted in the creation of a unique databank of CBT outcome data on almost 1,600 patients, which is probably the largest of its kind in Canada. One of our research projects involves analyzing pre-treatment characteristics of patients to see if we can predict which patients are most likely to benefit from CBT. We are interested to see if COVID-19 changes outcomes in any way. We are also studying the process of clinical supervision of mental health trainees in the administration of CBT. The more effective our clinical supervision, the better trained people are to administer CBT, and of course, the better our delivery of mental health care.

Dr. Jesse Renaud

The Senator W. David Angus Award for Research into Major Psychiatric Diseases

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health clinics across Canada, including the MUHC Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) Unit, have moved to virtual care. To ensure continued effective service delivery, it is necessary to understand the consequences of the pandemic on patients’ mental health and to match individuals to the best available resources. My research involves collecting data from patients referred to the Unit for CBT, in order to better understand what effect the pandemic is having on patient mental health and whether the virtual delivery of CBT is impacting patient engagement and capacity to benefit from treatment.

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