In the early ‘90s, researcher and family and palliative care physician Dr. David Kuhl sat with a 25 year-old man with end-stage AIDS as he called his father from the hospital.

“I heard nothing but silence on the other end as he told his father he was dying of AIDS.” The young man passed away a few weeks later and his father never came to see him.

The questions raised by this experience would inform the next chapter of Dr. Kuhl’s work:

What kind of man would desert his dying son? Would I behave any differently?

What drives men and fathers to behave and engage in the way that they sometimes do?

Dr. Kuhl began to investigate the impact of relationships and the role of group work in psychotherapy, particularly Irvin Yalom’s research and writings on safety, inclusion, and trust in group therapy.

1993

Dr. David Kuhl co-founds one of the first palliative care programs to include HIV/AIDS patients, and begins to incorporate relationship-based education into his practice.

2014

The VGH + UBC Hospital Foundation established The Mohammad H. Mohseni Foundation Chair in Men's Health, Integrity and Wellbeing at Vancouver Coastal Health, with support from the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation; Larry Goldenberg appointed as the inaugural Chair.

2015

To support research mobilization and knowledge translation activities, Dr. Kuhl founded the organization that will become ‘Blueprint for Wellbeing of Men and Wellbeing Society’, or Blueprint.

2017

Dr. Kuhl is appointed The Mohammad H. Mohseni Foundation Chair in Men's Health, Integrity and Wellbeing; operational funding provided by the Mohammad H. Mohseni Foundation and the Leon Judah Blackmore Foundation.

2024

Results from Blueprint’s flagship First Responder Resiliency Program, delivered to over 500 first responders from 60 public safety organizations across Canada, provide evidence of the program’s profound impact on participants’ health and wellness.

Today, Blueprint is a 7-person organization on the road to charitable status.