Dr. Sharon Vipler has been appointed Acting Executive Director of the BC Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU). Dr. Vipler will serve in this role while Cheyenne Johnson, BCCSU Executive Director, is on maternity leave for the next year.

Dr. Vipler (MD, CCFP(AM), dipl. ABAM) joins BCCSU from Fraser Health Authority, where she served as Regional Department Head & Program Medical Director in Addiction Medicine and Substance Use Services. Dr. Vipler is also a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Faculty of Medicine.

Dr. Vipler completed her medical degree at UBC and her family medicine residency at the University of Alberta. She is a diplomat in the American Board of Addiction Medicine. Clinically, she has worked in a wide spectrum of addiction medicine settings in BC’s lower mainland.

Prior to that, Dr. Vipler was Fellow in the Canada Addiction Medicine Research Fellowship Program with BCCSU and was an addiction medicine physician with St. Paul's Addiction Medicine Consult Team and Surrey Memorial Addiction Services.