Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care’s Board of Directors today announced the appointment of Dr. Nadiya Sunderji to the position of President and Chief Executive Officer, effective June 13, 2022.

Waypoint was pleased to have interest from a number of talented leaders during an extensive search, however Dr. Sunderji’s years of service as a Catholic hospital leader at both Waypoint and St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, combined with her dedication to Waypoint’s promise statement of Advancing Understanding, Improving Lives made her the best choice to lead the hospital into the future, notes Waypoint’s Board of Directors Vice Chair Ernest Vaillancourt.

“We could not be happier that Nadiya, our current Vice President Medical Affairs and Chief of Staff, will be our next President and CEO,” says Vaillancourt. “Her commitment to our patients and community clients, as well as the mental health and addictions sector as a whole, supports the direction of the current strategic plan of the hospital. Since joining Waypoint in 2019 we have witnessed her dedication to quality improvement and efforts to improve the patient and family experience not only in the hospital but in the broader health and mental health system.”

A physician and leader with nearly 20 years of progressive leadership experience, Dr. Sunderji is deeply committed to compassionate care and servant leadership, and has completed the Catholic Health Sponsors of Ontario (CHSO) Mission Leadership Program. She is an inspirational, courageous and engaging health leader who demonstrates strategic thinking and values based decision making. Dr. Sunderji is deeply committed to developing partnerships and collaboration having formed and chaired the Ontario Health Central Region regional table for mental health and addiction physician leadership.

Carol Lambie, Waypoint’s President and CEO since 2009, states “Nadiya’s commitment to servant leadership along with her diverse clinical experience and academic expertise will take Waypoint strongly into the next phase of its future that is focused on system transformation. I am thrilled that the board has chosen Nadiya as its next President and CEO with her passion for research, quality improvement, and integrated collaborative mental health care.”

In her current role, she has been instrumental in championing an engaged physician workforce through new programming which included Waypoint’s first physician assistants and the development a strong physician leadership structure expanding to outpatients and digital health. Her leadership led to the launch of the new Family, Child and Youth Mental Health Program which has already served over 1,200 children and youth. She has also sponsored the implementation of the Health Quality Ontario Standards and supported the innovative development of virtual concurrent disorders services. She is an award winning educator and researcher, most recently having been awarded the Paul Patterson Innovation in Education Award by the Canadian Psychiatric Association in 2019.

Prior to joining Waypoint, Dr. Sunderji held various roles at St. Michael’s Hospital between 2013-2019, serving as the Medical Director, Quality, Mental Health and Addictions Service, a psychiatrist in the Mental Health and Addictions Service, a consulting psychiatrist with the Academic Family Health Team, and an Associate Scientist at the hospital’s Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute. She has also held the position of Lead, Integrated Mental Health Care Education, for the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto and worked as a Psychiatrist and Education Lead in the Mental Health and Addictions Program at Women’s College Hospital.

“I am excited to be moving into this new role and furthering Waypoint’s journey alongside our excellent board, leaders and staff” says Dr. Sunderji. “I am inspired by our patients, staff and partners daily and I am committed to continually strengthening internal and external relationships and teamwork to foster clinical innovation during this extraordinary time of change and opportunity. Waypoint has so many existing partnerships that are making a difference and I look forward to furthering collaboration locally, and across the region and province, to deliver compassionate, connected care for everyone needing mental health and addictions treatment and care.”

Dr. Sunderji earned her Doctor of Medicine from the University of Western Ontario, London and her residency in Psychiatry at the University of Toronto in 2008. She has also completed a Master of Public Health, with a Certificate in Quality, Patient Safety, and Outcomes Research at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and a certificate from the Centre for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at the University of Toronto. She is also an Associate Professor in the Division of Adult Psychiatry and Health Systems in the Department of Psychiatry at U of T.

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