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Dr. Kerri Ritchie

Alumni Profile: Dr. Kerri Ritchie Currently, a senior psychologist at People Health and Wellness. Education experience: 199301996, B.A. in psychology at McGill University. 1996-1998, M.A. in forensic psychology at City University of New York. 1998-2002, Ph.D. in clinical psychology at University of New Brunswick. Career timeline: 2002-2015, Psychologist for maternal fetal medicine, department of psychology at the Ottawa Hospital. 2009-2009, co-director of training, at the department of psychology at the Ottawa Hospital. 2010-2022, director of training at the department of psychology at the Ottawa Hospital. 2015-2022, Psychologist, for psychology consultation services for inpatients. 2017-2023, professional practice coordinator at the Ottawa Hospital Psychology division. 2022-2023, secondment, mental health strat plan, for people health and wellness at the Ottawa Hospital. 2023-currently, a senior psychologist for People Health and Wellness. What made you choose this path? I started off wanting forensic psychology. From that experience working in forensics, I focused my doctoral work on children and adolescents. From that experience, I wanted to focus on early intervention, and worked for 16 years in obstetrics. While in this position, I took on a leadership position as Director of Training. From that I learned about leadership, received training in leadership and worked on national boards. I also began doing work and research on wellness for people working in health care, which led to my current position in People Health and Wellness of creating and developing health care and mental health care clinics and programming specifically for health care workers within an organization Do you have advice for students interested in pursuing a similar path? My advice would be that there isn't one career path. There are multiple paths and they can change over time. What we enjoy changes over time. What is available or what exits changes over time. My advice would be that it is about a balance. There will always be things about a job that you don't like, coupled with things, if you are lucky, that you love. Constantly shifting for a "better" job, won't allow you to find surprising things you might grow into. It is also the case that we can get locked into certain paths, and worry we can't shift. you absolutely can make a shift. It often takes a risk, and sometime retraining, What has been the biggest challenge on your career path so far, and how have you navigated it? Believing that my options were limited because I had only seen a few examples of what people with my degree could do. I was able to navigate it because I had invested my whole career in getting to know people, being responsive and helpful, and showing people that I could support, operationally, what was needed. When I wanted a shift, I knew who I could ask and they knew me. They also knew what I could do, and were willing to support me in creating a new path, program, and opportunity. What has been the biggest joy on your career path so far? It's 2 overarching experiences - Being close to retirement, I can truly look back and understand what a privilege it has been to support students, early careers, staff, and physicians, and community members during some of their best and lowest moments in their lives. It is a humbling experience. Second part, not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to chart their career path, to be able to make choices for their careers, in the moment and at pivotal moments, and for that I am profoundly grateful. Some people do have limited options and choices because of life circumstances.

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