Dr. Ramesh Zacharias is the President/CEO and Medical Director of the Chronic Pain Centre of Excellence for Canadian Veterans (CPCoE). Established on April 1, 2020, CPCoE is a not-for-profit organization funded by Veterans Affairs Canada to pursue Veteran-focused research that will improve the well-being of Veterans and their families suffering from chronic pain.

Dr. Zacharias is passionate about working with Veterans living with chronic pain and has dedicated much of his career to supporting this population. He worked with the Department of National Defence from 2000-2005 and has treated Veterans clinically since 2012.

Dr. Zacharias received his Doctorate in Medicine in 1980 from the University of Western Ontario and his Fellowship in General Surgery in 1987. He was Founder and CEO of Med-Emerg International Inc. from 1983-2009. Med-Emerg was the largest physician staffing company in Canada, which included a consulting division that designed Emergency and Primary Care services across 14 countries. Most notably, the company provided 1,000+ healthcare professionals with work in 37 clinics in the Department of National Defence, as well as provided healthcare professionals for Kosovo refugees. In 2003, the company was retained by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to recruit health professionals during the SARS crisis.

Since 2012, Dr. Zacharias has been an investigating Coroner in Ontario. In January 2012, he became a member of the Department of Anesthesia at McMaster University and was appointed the Medical Director of the Inter-Disciplinary Pain Clinic at Hamilton Health Sciences. In April 2015, he became the Medical Director of the Michael G. DeGroote Pain Clinic at McMaster University Medical Centre. He served as Co-Chair of the Adult Chronic Pain Network for the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care from 2017-2019.

Previous page