Riyad Abu-Laban

PROFESSOR

Hospital Site:
Vancouver – Vancouver General Hospital

Dr. Riyad B. Abu-Laban is an Emergency Physician at Vancouver General Hospital, Professor in the UBC Department of Emergency Medicine (DEM), and Scientific Director of the BC Emergency Medicine Network. He holds a MHSc in epidemiology from UBC, and has a wide range of publications including first authorship on randomized trials published in the NEJM and Lancet, and authorship of three EM textbook chapters. Dr. Abu-Laban has a longstanding commitment to the advancement of emergency medicine as an academic discipline in Canada and internationally. His professional contributions include 10 years as Senior Associate Editor for the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine, eight years as a member of the Royal College Emergency Medicine Specialty Committee, participation as one of seven members on the Collaborative Working Group on the Future of Emergency Medicine in Canada, and ongoing membership on the Specialty Implementation Committee of the International Federation for Emergency Medicine.

As DEM Research Director from 2009-2020, Dr. Abu-Laban provided academic mentorship to numerous DEM trainees, faculty members and career award recipients, and taught on clinical trials for the VCHRI Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation where he is a Research Associate. In 2011 he developed and launched an innovative one month research education program for UBC Royal College Emergency Medicine Residents called the “Novel Education in Research & Design (NERD) Block”. The NERD Block expanded in 2012 to include Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellows and EM Faculty Member students, and has continued annually. This program has received consistently high evaluations, and has generated significant national attention. In 2013 Dr. Abu-Laban published a mixed outcomes evaluation study on the NERD Block in CJEM.

Dr. Abu-Laban currently oversees a wide range of activities in the EM Network Scientific Program related to data access and the functioning of the EMN as a Learning Health System, and has a particular interest in the evolution of emergency medicine both nationally and internationally.

Teaching Interests

Dr. Abu-Laban’s teaching interests include epidemiology and biostatistics.

Research Interests

Dr. Abu-Laban’s research interests include EM training and certification, EM evolution, international EM, learning health systems, clinical epidemiology, wilderness medicine and cardiac resuscitation.

Publications

  • Abu-Laban RB, Christenson J, Lindstrom RR, Lang E. Emergency care clinical networks. CJEM 2022 Jul 22:1-4. doi: 10.1007/s43678-022-00348-3. Online ahead of print.
  • Abu-Laban RB. The evolution of emergency medicine internationally. CJEM. 2020 Jul;22(4):454-455. doi: 10.1017/cem.2020.27. )
  • Abu-Laban RB, Drebit S, Lindstrom RR, Archibald C, Eggers K, Ho K, Khazei A, Lund A, MacKinnon C, Markham R, Marsden J, Martin R, Christenson J. The British Columbia emergency medicine network: a paradigm shift in a provincial system of emergency care. Cureus. 2018. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.2022.
  • Collaborative Working Group on the Future of Emergency Medicine in Canada (CWG-EM):, Sinclair D, Abu-Laban RB, Toth P, LeBlanc C, Eisener-Parsche P, Frank JR, Holroyd B. Emergency Medicine Training and Practice in Canada: Celebrating the Past & Evolving for the Future. CJEM. 2017 Jul;19(S2):S1-S8. doi: 10.1017/cem.2017.372.
  • Abu-Laban RB, Scott IM, Gowans MC. Relationship between Canadian medical school student career interest in emergency medicine and postgraduate training disposition. Can Med Educ J. 2017 Jun 30;8(3):e4-e12. eCollection 2017 Jun

Academic Background

  • MHSc, UBC (1999)
  • FRCP(C) Emergency Medicine, UBC (1992)
  • PGY2, University of Alberta (1985-86)
  • Rotating Internship, McGill University (1984-85)
  • MD, University of Alberta (1984)
  • BMSc University of Alberta (1982)