Medical CBT (CMCBT)

CBT Canada offers a Certificate in Medical CBT (CMCBT). About one-third of primary care appointments are primarily psychiatric, and most other visits require some psychology to optimize outcomes. Unfortunately, few of today’s primary care physicians had access to adequate CBT training in their medical school years.

In April 1999, in preparation for the first Mainpro-C workshop on medical CBT, for what was then called the College of Family Physicians of Canada Annual Scientific Assembly (now known as Family Medicine Forum), CBT Canada unwittingly began the country’s largest ongoing behavioural medicine educational needs assessment. Over the years since then, CBT Canada faculty have spent hundreds of days in small group dialogues while conducting workshops with family physicians coast-to-coast. In addition, faculty have analyzed attendees’ pre-workshop needs assessments, post-workshop evaluations, and post-post-workshop self-reflection exercises—over 10,000 physician-created documents in total.

The explicit and tacit understandings obtained from this 20+ year study have enabled CBT Canada to create workshops highly customized for the needs of Canadian family physicians. This knowledge has been further operationalized in the Certificate in Medical CBT (CMCBT).

Benefits:

Physicians who complete the Certificate in Medical CBT (CMCBT) have the satisfaction that comes from providing significantly more evidence-based psychological care than treatment as usual. Although their patients do not receive the “ideal” of orthodox CBT, they benefit from significantly better treatment than those provided by less organized psychosocial interventions. Most alumni report a significant reduction in the stress of treating patients with psychological issues, and improved clinical outcomes across a wide range of disorders.