Biography
Dr. Andrew L. Smith served as Medical Director of Inpatient Mental Health at TOH’s General Campus from 2021 to 2024, during which time he led an interdisciplinary TOH quality initiative eliminating ~253 hours of physician administrative time per year and co-chaired the Department of Mental Health’s 2023 to 2024 accreditation cycle. He currently sits on the Board of The Ottawa Hospital Academic Medical Organization (TOHAMO), sits on the TOHAMO Quality and Safety Grant Review Committee, and is a member of the uOttawa Faculty of Medicine’s Faculty Council.
Dr. Smith trained in biochemistry and clinical epidemiology at Memorial University of Newfoundland before completing his MD at Memorial in 2012 and his psychiatry residency at uOttawa in 2020. He has since completed executive programs at the Harvard School of Public Health in Leading in Health Systems and Business Applications for AI in Healthcare, along with coursework with the Society for Medical Decision Making.
Dr. Smith’s research examines the language embedded in clinical and technological systems and how it shapes medical reasoning. He is a member of Dr. Simon Hatcher’s Hatching Ideas Lab and Dr. Marco Solmi’s SCIENCES Lab at OHRI. His peer-reviewed work includes a lead-authored methodological critique of umbrella review research on serotonin and depression (Molecular Psychiatry, 2024), a conceptual paper on the neuroanatomy of hallucination versus confabulation in large language models (PLOS Digital Health, 2023), and collaborative work on AI-assisted systematic review (JCPP Advances, 2024) and on the feasibility of non-pharmacological interventions in mania (International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being, 2025). He is a co-applicant on a CIHR-funded Project Grant (2025 to 2029) examining quality of inpatient psychiatric care for individuals with schizophrenia. Professional society memberships include the Society for Medical Decision Making and the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness.
Alongside hospital and academic roles, Dr. Smith practices as a medico-legal expert in two distinct streams. As an expert witness, he is retained by plaintiff and defense counsel in civil litigation, primarily in matters of medical malpractice and personal injury. As an Independent Medical Examiner, he has performed assessments for WSIB, Veterans Affairs Canada, Health Canada, and the RCMP. In April 2026, Dr. Smith was invited medico-legal expert for the Ontario Trial Lawyers Association’s “Never Event” to Negligence webinar, speaking about the unique challenges in assessing standard of care and establishing causation in mental health litigation.