If you requested educational credits, please be sure to complete our conference survey here by May 8th, 2026. Please allow 30 days for your certificate to be processed. If you need it expedited, reach out to Sarah Burns (sburns@hawaiiresidency.org).
We are thrilled to announce our 2026 Keynote Speaker, Dr. Ataa Azarbar. Ataa Azarbar was born and raised in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. He completed a masters in Neuroscience at Carleton University in Ottawa, studying the kindling model of epilepsy and metabolic interventions to 
slow the development of seizures.
Over the course of medical school at the University of Calgary, he encountered firsthand the stigma patients with substance use disorders encountered when attempting to access medical care. He selected psychiatry as a specialty as this seemed to be most likely to provide a skillset to help patients with multiple concurrent addictions and complicating mental health issues, which seemed to him to be the population most vulnerable to this. He completed a psychiatry residency at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, which was one of the main epicenters of the crystal methamphetamine and high potency opioid overdose crises in Canada. He completed an American Board of Addiction Medicine Fellowship through St. Paul’s Hospital and completed the American Board of Addiction Medicine Certifying examination. He is currently a lifetime diplomate of the American board of Addiction Medicine.
Since entering practice in 2016 he has devoted his professional time to treating patients with severe concurrent disorders or severe substance use disorders and complex pain in a variety of inpatient and outpatient settings. He has pursued additional training in Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, Emotion Focused Therapy, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy, and electroconvulsive therapy. His primary focus is helping lead (as Medical Manager) and develop a unique, province-wide, free to access, 9 month inpatient treatment program devoted to treating severe mental illness and substance use disorders concurrently. This is a woefully understudied and complex population, living at significant risk to self and others. It is his hope that the Redfish Healing Centre for Mental Health and Addiction will establish itself as a centre of excellence in the field of concurrent disorders and a site of knowledge generation for more effective treatment interventions. To our knowledge, there is no equivalent program in North America.
The University of Hawai’i John A. Burns School of Medicine and the Departments of Psychiatry, Family Medicine, Obstetrics & Gynecology and the Hawai’i Society of Addiction Medicine are proud to present the 2026 Hawai’i Addictions Conference, Hawai’i’s premier training, education, networking, and skill-building opportunity centering on substance use. The conference will explore new horizons in the diagnosis and treatment of addictions, breakthroughs in evidence-based research, the changing climate of drug policy, and the current culture of patient care.
Who should attend?
*educational credits available
We are applying to have the following Educational Credits available (*not yet approved):
CME/CE Certificates will be issued within 30 days of conference completion. All attendees seeking credits will be required to fill out a post-conference survey in order to collect their certificate.
If you have any questions regarding the conference, please contact Sarah Burns at sburns@hawaiiresidency.org