Christopher Patterson graduated from King’s College Hospital Medical School (University of London, England) in 1970, and after a rotating internship emigrated to Canada. He practiced as a general practitioner in Blind River, Northern Ontario, from 1971 until 1976.
He then entered residency in Internal Medicine at Queen’s University in Kingston, before subspecializing in Geriatric Medicine. He pursued postgraduate studies at the University of Western Ontario, Boston University and Guy’s Hospital London, before completing his geriatric residency and fellowship.
He joined the faculty of McMaster University in 1982 and received an RS McLaughlin Scholarship to study Clinical Epidemiology. He has led the Division of Geriatric Medicine (Department of Medicine) at McMaster, and Geriatric Services at Hamilton Health Sciences, the second largest teaching hospital in Canada. He was promoted to Professor in 1994. In 2005 he was awarded a Senior Visiting Fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Study, University of Bologna, Italy.
He has served as chief examiner in Geriatric Medicine for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and held positions on the executive of the Canadian Geriatrics Society and Geriatric Section of the Ontario Medical Association.
From 1985 until 2005 he served as a member of the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care. He has also participated in various other federal and provincial government sponsored task forces.
He is a member of the editorial advisory board of the Canadian Pharmacists Association flagship publication, the CPS. In 1999 he co-chaired the Canadian Consensus Conference on Dementia with Dr Serge Gauthier, and was responsible for much of the editing of the subsequent publications in the Canadian Medical Association Journal and Canadian Journal of Neurological sciences. In 2005-6 he was a member of the steering committee of the third Canadian Consensus Conference on Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia.
In 2006 he became Health Sciences Editor for the Canadian Journal on Aging, and was appointed to the Advisory Board of the Institute of Aging, one of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Research Interests: Preventive health care for seniors including elder abuse and frailty as well as various aspects of cognitive disorders.
