Dr. York Hsiang has been appointed as the Vancouver Physician Staff Association’s managing director. Dr. Hsiang, a professor of vascular surgery at UBC and consultant surgeon at VGH, has spent his 37–year career with VCH and is acknowledged as an outstanding medical leader.

Dr. Hsiang’s priorities are to engage as many of VPSA’s 1,900 members as possible and to ensure the physician voice is recognized and is impactful at the various levels of our Vancouver Community of Care organization inclusive of VCH’s senior leadership team.

 “The health authority and its physicians need to work in lock step rather than without each other,” he said. “When one is more dominant, you can’t achieve great things.”

“Dr. Hsiang is passionate about the work of the VPSA and the advancement of physician engagement,” said VPSA president Dr. Simon Rabkin. “We’re pleased to welcome him to this important position and to build on its strong foundation as well as identify new opportunities as we move forward with the work of engagement for the physicians of the Vancouver Community of Care.”

Under Dr. Hsiang’s direction, VPSA will be contacting the department heads to discuss with them the association and its capacity to advocate for them.

 “We’ll be strategizing different methods of engaging with our members, identifying their concerns, and bringing these to the health authority,” he added. “I’m excited to take on this position. It will be a real challenge, but I’m determined to bring about an improvement in the overall physician morale.”

Dr. Hsiang earned his medical degree from the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand and all his surgery training in Vancouver and at UBC. He has spent his career at Vancouver Hospital and, over a decade ago, brought endovascular surgery to the hospital. Dr. Hsiang has served on several committees at Vancouver Hospital and in the Department of Surgery at UBC. He is a member of many vascular surgery societies and is the current president of the Western Vascular Society.