December 8: An Evening with Dr. Brennan Spiegel

 Why did Blue Jays fans feel so “down” after losing the World Series—while Dodgers fans are still riding “high”? It’s not just about baseball. The language of being “up” or “down” is written into our biology—because gravity shapes not only our posture and movement, but also our mood, digestion, and even our emotions.

Join Dr. Brennan Spiegel, MD, professor of Medicine and Public Health at Cedars-Sinai and UCLA, for a fascinating look at the hidden ways gravity influences human health. In his new book, PULL: How Gravity Shapes Your Body, Steadies the Mind, and Guides Our Health, Dr. Spiegel reveals how this invisible force affects everything from the butterflies we feel when “falling” on a roller coaster—or when “falling” in love—to why astronauts get heartburn in space, and what it all means for our health on Earth.

Through science and storytelling, Dr. Spiegel introduces a new field called biogravitational medicine—and shows how building “gravity resilience” can help us find balance, stand stronger, and live longer. 

November 11: An Evening with Dr. Carl Elliot

Truth.

Justice.

The Medical Way.

Sometimes the medical way is to do injustice to the truth and its bearers.

When unwelcome truths are revealed, the person doing the exposing can be treated unfairly by both the secret keepers and those expected to be grateful for the light shed, creating a unique form of moral injury.

You are invited to spend an evening with Dr. Carl Elliott as we explore his experience and that of other medical whistleblowers, as described in his book The Occasional Human Sacrifice.

Please join us this Remembrance Day as we honour the memory of those who made personal sacrifices for our freedom, and explore the motivation of those who are driven by serving the value of the greater good despite the costs.

Monday September 29: An Evening with Drs. Ivan Oransky & Adam Cifu

September is traditionally back to school time.

For physicians, school never ends.

Much of that ongoing education is based on the medical literature, and recent times have demonstrated some shakiness in that foundation.

You are invited to spend an evening reflecting on the quality of the current medical literature with Dr. Ivan Oransky and Dr. Adam Cifu.

Dr. Oransky is the director of the Center for Scientific Integrity, which recently received a $900K grant to establish the Medical Evidence Project that will be using the tools of forensic metascience to test the integrity of the medical literature.

Dr. Cifu's latest venture is the Sensible Medicine project (Substack and podcast), and he will be sharing with us his passion for evidence based medicine, exploring the movement’s present strengths and weaknesses.

Please join us for an evening examining the quality control challenges that we all face in our quest to stay current as medical practitioners.

Date: Monday, September 29

Time: 7.30 PM Dr. Oransky’s presentation

           8:30 PM Dr. Cifu’s presentation

(please note, these sessions are independent of each other, so you can attend one or both) 

SAVE THE DATES:

November 11: An Evening with Dr. Carl Elliot, author of The Occasional Human Sacrifice

December 8: An Evening with Dr. Brennan Spiegel, author of Pull: How Gravity Shapes Your Body, Steadies the Mind, and Guides Our Health

Monday June 16: An Evening with Dr. Claire Sandoe

Migraine is a brain disease, and the headache component gets a lot of our attention, but the prodromal and postdromal phases, as well as the aura, can cause diagnostic confusion and create management challenges.

Migraine may, outside of headache, present with emotional and cognitive symptoms, fatigue, autonomic instability, gastrointestinal symptoms, sensitivities to sensory input, vertigo, or even chills! It can be a great mimic that can cloud your differential diagnosis until you add it to the list of possibilities, and once you do, you may realize that you are seeing more patients living with migraine in your practice than you realized.

You are invited to spend an evening exploring everything about migraine but the headache.

Our guide for the evening will be Dr. Claire Sandoe. Dr. Sandoe is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Neurology) at the University of Toronto and a headache neurologist at the Women’s College Hospital Centre for Headache. She serves on the board of the Canadian Headache Society, the Education Committees of the International Headache Society and the American Headache Society, and is co-chair of the Canadian Headache Society National Neurology Resident Headache Course as well as the American Headache Society’s Mastering Migraine Therapies program. 

Tuesday May 27: An Evening with Dr. Paul Newhouse

 Are you under-prescribing nicotine? Before you respond with “WTF?” (What’s This Foolishness?), please take a moment to consider this: the potential therapeutic use of nicotine has been an ongoing question for medical research since 1926. Investigations as to nicotine’s use to treat neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Mild Cognitive Impairment as well as neuropsychiatric conditions like ADHD, schizophrenia, autism, depressions, Down’s Syndrome, and chemobrain has been going on for years without receiving much attention in the medical community.

You are invited to spend an evening with one of the world’s leading experts on the clinical use of nicotine in order to educate yourself about a potential new tool for your therapeutic toolkit.

Our guide for the evening will be Dr. Paul A. Newhouse,  Director of the Center for Cognitive Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He is also Jim Turner Professor of Cognitive Disorders at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and Professor of Psychiatry, Pharmacology, and Medicine.

World No Tobacco Day is May 31, a day dedicated to raising awareness of the dangers of smoking. Please join us a few days before that to consider the benefits of nicotine and the risks of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

April 15: an Evening with Dr. Christopher Booth

April is Cancer Awareness Month.

In 2025, oncologists have available some remarkable treatments that offer substantial improvements in patient outcome.

However, many new cancer treatments lack evidence that they improve overall survival or quality of life.

This makes treatment decision-making difficult for clinicians, patients and their families.

Can we do better for our patients and their families?

Is it time for a paradigm shift in how we talk about cancer treatment?

You are invited to consider new insights into these questions from Dr. Christopher Booth, Professor of Medical Oncology at Queen’s University and co-founder of the Common Sense Oncology movement, as he engages us on the topic: “Common Sense Oncology: Getting Back To What Really Matters.”

Please join us in the virtual Doctors’ Lounge to learn from Dr. Booth and your colleagues, as we consider new perspectives on this important topic.

March 19: Our annual storytelling night: An Evening with Drs. Joe Vipond, Rex Kay & You: The Narrative Imperative

Life. Death. Tragedy. Hope. Terror. Relief. Cooperation. Politics. Trust. Betrayal.

These are but a few of the elements of storytelling that you may have experienced due to living through the COVID pandemic over the past 5 years. Whatever your experience has been in this ongoing saga, you are invited to unpack your story with colleagues at this year’s edition of the Doctors’ Lounge Festival of Medical Storytelling.

This annual event is an evening dedicated to sharing stories, poems, songs, and artwork about our experiences as physicians, whether as providers or as a recipients of medical care, or as caregivers.

Presenters are asked to keep their contributions to less than 5 minutes.

Even if you are not prepared to be a presenter, your potential feedback as an audience member will hopefully make this a fully interactive experience. Dr. Rex Kay of Ars Medica: A Journal of Medicine, The Arts and Humanities will be on hand to give insightful feedback on the creative efforts presented.

To kick off the evening, we will be hearing from Dr. Joe Vipond, co-founder of the Canadian Covid Society and corresponding author for a call for national COVID-19 inquiry. At the root of any inquiry will be the stories of our experiences of COVID. While we wait for the powers that be to formally initiate that process, we can start the process of healing and repair by sharing our stories.

Please join us.