Anees Bahji

Biography
Dr. Anees Bahji [BSc(H), MD, CISAM, CCSAM, DABPN, FRCPC (he/him/his)] is a current Ph.D. Epidemiology student in the Department of Community Health Sciences within the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary as of September 2022. Under the supervision of Dr. Scott Patten, his thesis will evaluate the feasibility of using routinely-collected population-based administrative health data to research the epidemiology of cannabis use disorder and related outcomes. Outside his graduate studies, he researches the broader epidemiology and treatment of substance use disorders, focusing on cannabis and concurrent psychiatric disorders. In addition, Dr. Bahji participates in ongoing research collaborations within Canada and the United States on multiple topics, including the Veterans Aging Cohort Study (VACS), one of the largest multisite prospective cohort studies exploring the health of adults living with and without HIV in the United States. Dr. Bahji is a recent graduate of the International Collaborative Addiction Medicine Research Fellowship at the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use, the Research in Addiction Medicine Scholars Program through Boston University Medical Centre, the Media and Medicine Certificate Program from Harvard University, and the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network studentship. In addition to his graduate training in epidemiology, Dr. Bahji is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Calgary. Dr. Bahji is a certified specialist in Psychiatry through the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and an Addiction Medicine specialist through the International Society of Addiction Medicine. Clinically, Dr. Bahji works as a general psychiatrist and addiction medicine physician at the Foothills Medical Centre, Calgary Opioid Dependency Program (ODP), and Rapid Access to Addiction Medicine (RAAM) in Calgary, Alberta. Dr. Bahji is the current Educational Director for the Addiction Psychiatry Resident Rotation at the University of Calgary. He serves as a preceptor to psychiatry residents completing their Addiction Psychiatry rotation. In addition to these roles, Dr. Bahji is a Mental Health Educator with the TED-Ed initiative, developing animated films on various mental health topics, such as cannabis use, schizophrenia, eating disorders, and steroids. He is Assistant Editor of the Canadian Journal of Addiction.