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.

Wednesday February 19: An Evening with Drs. David Livingstone Smith & Subrena E. Smith

You are invited to spend an evening with Dr. David Livingstone Smith for a thought-provoking exploration of the concept of race and its implications for us as physicians and for our society. One of the world’s leading experts on dehumanization, his previous talk to us was well received. He will be returning to the Doctors’ Lounge accompanied by his life partner, Dr. Subrena E. Smith 

Please note: this evening is a variation of the talk that was originally scheduled for Remembrance Day 2024.

Interesting background reading on the subject of race & medicine: https://www.statnews.com/embedded-bias/

MONDAY January 27: An Evening With Dr. Jason Karlawish

Alzheimer’s is a structural, neurodegenerative disorder resulting in the progressive and permanent loss of memory, identity, and autonomy. This is the present paradigm. But how can this paradigm stand, when many patients, deep into the condition, have episodes of lucidity, with clear re-connections to their “former” selves?

Time for a paradigm shift, and you are invited to spend one evening during Alzheimer’s Awareness Month reflecting  on a new awareness of the condition.

Please join us as Dr. Jason Karlawish guides us through an exploration of the phenomenon of paradoxical lucidity and its implications for Alzheimer patients, caregivers, and their physicians. Dr. Karlawish is a professor of medicine, medical ethics and health policy, and neurology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He is board-certified in geriatric medicine. He is director of the Penn Program on Precision Medicine for the Brain (P3MB), Co-Associate Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, and co-director of the Penn Memory Center. He is also director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center’s Outreach, Recruitment and Education Core. His research focuses on aging, neuroethics and policy. He has investigated issues in dementia drug development, informed consent, paradoxical lucidity and theory of mind in dementia, research and treatment decision-making, and voting by persons living with dementia. He is the executive producer of the Age of Aging, a podcast dedicated to exploring living well with an aging mind. He is the author of The Problem of Alzheimer’s: How Science, Culture and Politics Turned a Rare Disease Into a Crisis and What We Can Do About It, and the novel Open Wound: The Tragic Obsession of Dr. William Beaumont..

Please join us as we kick off the 21st year of the Doctors' Lounge series by exploring the phenomenon of paradoxical/terminal lucidity. As always, sharing your personal experiences and insights with colleagues enriches the experience of participating in the Doctors’ Lounge series. Looking forward to your contributions.

December 10: The Art of Giving with Kate Behan

The psychological and physical health consequences of food insecurity can be seen on a daily basis in our clinical encounters.

Last December, your District Executive, on your behalf, donated $25000 to the Daily Bread Food Bank to help address and raise awareness of the growing food crisis in Toronto.

District 11 will be doing the same this year.

For clarity, this money comes from the District’s financial reserves, which come from voluntary dues paid by District 11 members over the years. This money does not come from your annual mandatory OMA dues.

The District has over $900 000 in the bank, and this fund is growing as it accumulates interest.

How should this money be spent? Should the District be making even more substantial charitable contributions to benefit the health of Torontonians, or should charity be exclusively a matter for individual physicians?

At this time of the year, when charitable giving is a traditional part of the season, how do you as an individual decide where and how to share your money?

Please join us as Kate Behan, Managing Director of Charity Intelligence Canada, leads us in an exploration of the art of giving.