24/1/24 Let's Talk: An Evening With CAMH Physician Leaders

 Mental illness is one of the most pressing health care issue of our time. People with mental health care deserve a seamlessly connected mental healthcare system.

Imagine a truly connected mental health and addictions healthcare system where people with mental/physical health conditions receive compassionate, effective, and high-quality care and treatment, no matter their point of entry into the health care system.

 Please join us for a conversation with our guests from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health about CAMH’s next strategic plan and strengthening the connections between all physicians and CAMH teams.

Confirmed guest at this time are:

Dr. Sanjeev Sockalingam, Chief Medical Officer and Vice President CAMH Education,

Dr. Daniel Blumberger, Co-Chief of the General Adult Psychiatry and Health Systems Division,

Dr. Leslie Buckley, Chief of the Addictions Division,

Dr. Louise Gallagher, Chief of the Child, Youth and Family Mental Health Division.

Please join us for an open and thoughtful discussion as we begin the 20^th year of the Doctors’ Lounge series doing what we have been doing for the past two decades: imagining a healthier future.

December 12: an Evening with Dr. Jennifer Stellar

 How do we transcend our own self-focus to care about other people, groups, and society as a whole?

Please join us as we explore this question with Dr. Jennifer Stelllar, Director/Principal Investigator of HEAL (Health, Emotions & Altruism Laboratory) at the University of Toronto.

December, with its holiday atmosphere and culture of gift giving, is a wonderful time to consider giving yourself the gift of self-transcendence.

Please join us in the collegial atmosphere of the Doctors’ Lounge as we end 2023 on a positive note with an expert in the positive emotions.

November 13: Annual Remembrance Day Program with Dr. Janet Ellis

In these troubling times, where the conflicts reported daily in the news are becoming harder to bear, you are invited to spend an evening exploring how people heal from emotional trauma.

 

In honour of the Remembrance Day weekend, we will begin the evening by exploring innovative programs designed to help those who have worked to protect our freedoms through their military service. We will also focus on what we have learned in helping veterans return to civilian life.

 

In the latter half of the evening, we will open up for an “ask me anything” session on the subject of trauma and recognizing and treating PTSD in our patients, ourselves and veterans.

 

Our guide for the evening is Dr. Janet Ellis.

Dr. Ellis is Professor in Veteran Mental Health at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

She brings to this role her expertise as a psychiatrist with experience in trauma and oncology.

Please join us.

 

October 16: An exploration of menopause - An Evening with Dr. Michelle Jacobson

 How comfortable are you diagnosing and managing perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms?

You are invited to spend an evening increasing your comfort level by virtually participating in our upcoming October  Doctors’ Lounge event.

Our guide for the evening  will be Dr. Michelle Jacobson. Dr. Jacobson is an OBGYN with expertise in managing menopause. She is a member of the medical advisory board of the Menopause Foundation of Canada.

Should we be “celebrating menopause” or seeing it as a disability requiring accommodation?

You are invited to explore the topic of menopause in the collegial environment of the Doctors’ Lounge, a place to share your experiences and clinical expertise with colleagues.

Women may experience over half of their lifetime in the perimenopausal/menopausal state.

Wouldn’t it be wise to spend two hours of your time trying to better understand it?

Please join us as we mark World Menopause Awareness Month.

September 18 An exploration of academic freedom

 September marks the traditional start to the school year.

Whether it is elementary school or medical school, places of learning should be dedicated to developing healthy minds capable of adapting to a rapidly changing world and new truths as they emerge.

The search for new truths can often collide with the powers of those in authority, motivating truth seekers to pursue justice on behalf of emerging concepts.

Sometimes progress is made. Sometimes chaos ensues.

In recent years in the world of academia, priorities seem to be shifting from the traditional pursuit of truth as the highest value to the pursuit of justice as the exclusive top priority.

This deeply troubles our guest speaker, especially after recently becoming personally entangled in the conflict.

You are invited to spend an evening with Dr. Laurence Klotz, a thought leader who, by questioning authority, became an authority, changing the way we all practise medicine by pioneering the idea of active surveillance of prostate cancer.   He received the Order of Canada for his work in prostate cancer.

Dr. Klotz is presently concerned about the threats to the academic freedom required to germinate new ideas necessary to advance our profession.

It is for that reason why he is encouraging faculty members of academic institutions to join the University of Toronto Heterodox Academy community, and for non-academics to support the cause by understanding what is happening at our institutions of higher learning.

Please join us as he guides us in an exploration of what it means to embrace the ideals of viewpoint diversity, open inquiry and constructive disagreement from a medical perspective.

JUNE 12: The Toronto Mayoral Election

With all the hype surrounding the race to become mayor of Toronto, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the mayor has just one of 26 votes at City Council. Does it really matter who the mayor is with regards to local health care issues? Do the goings on at City Hall make any difference to our health and the health of our patients?

You are invited to spend an evening with Chris Moise, one of Toronto’s City Councilors and Chair of the Board of Health, to explore these questions.

Learn about some of Toronto’s health issues here .

This election is an opportunity to think about and raise questions about health from the local perspective, from climate change to road safety, from housing issues to sheltering the unhoused, from food insecurity to healthy eating options for all, from the opioid crisis to, well, the list goes on and on once you start thinking about it.

How does city government work? How can we as physicians work with our elected officials to improve the health of our fellow citizens beyond the mayoral election?

Please join us to examine the possibilities.

Introducing: The Soapbox Sessions, May 16 & 30

 As spring slowly breezes in with its air of renewal, The Doctors’ Lounge Series is inspired to try something new.

You are invited to spend  one or two evenings with colleagues who are leaders in their fields.

You will be allowed to ask them anything.

But first, you will hear short presentations from them on things they feel you should know, but might be unaware of.

 

On May 16, you are invited to spend an evening with the following Chairs of  Sections/MIG:

Eye Physicians & Surgeons: Dr. Richard Weinstein

Critical Care Medicine: Dr. David Katz

Complementary & Integrative Medicine: Dr. Esther Konigsberg

 

On May 30, you are invited to spend an evening with the following Chairs of  Sections:

Public Health Physicians: Dr. Piotr Oglaza

Addiction Medicine: Dr. Christopher Cavcuiti

Psychiatry: Dr. Renata Villela (see this recommended resource list  https://eopa.ca/resources/patient-services-education )

 

Please join us in the collegial (but still  virtual) atmosphere of the Doctors’ Lounge as we begin what will hopefully be the first of many similar evenings for years to come.

The CMAJ on Doctors' Lounges ( as we enter year 19 of our program)

 https://cmajnews.com/2023/01/26/physician-lounge-1096038/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=physician-lounge-1096038

March 20: The Return of our Annual Festival of Medical Storytelling

The Doctors’ Lounge  Festival of Medical Storytelling returns March 20.

It is an evening dedicated to sharing stories, poems, songs and artwork about your experiences as a physician within the health-care system, whether as a provider or as a recipient of medical care.

Presenters are asked to keep their contributions to less than 5 minutes (we welcome creative efforts in pieces of one minute or less. In the past, some of these shorter presentations have been quite moving. It is amazing what can be conveyed in a few words! ).

Even if you are not prepared to be a presenter, feedback from audience members 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. Ars Medica is an award-winning Toronto-based literary journal which explores illness, healing, perceptions of the body, and encounters with health-care.

To kick off the evening, we will be hearing from our President, Dr. Rose Zacharias, who will be sharing her love for medical narrative based on her own personal experiences as well as the stories shared with her by colleagues as President of the OMA. Dr. Zacharias is a certificant of the Harvard Media and Medicine Program.

Let’s celebrate World Storytelling Day as was our tradition prior to the pandemic (well, almost: this event will take place virtually, but it opens up the possibility of hearing from our colleagues who will be able to participate from outside of Toronto).

Time to let the creative juices flow just in time for spring.

Interested in more training in narrative medicine? See: https://narrativebasedmedicine.ca/foundation/

Feb 28: An Evening with Dr. Geoffrey Cohen

 OMA membership means that you are part of a unique group that makes up about 0.2% of Ontario’s population.

However, being a member of an organization does not necessarily mean that you feel a sense of belonging to that group.

What does it take to make that transformation?

Evidence is mounting that a sense of belonging can be as important for maintaining health as diet, exercise and sleep.

Many of our patients  manifest their lack of  a sense of belonging with physical and mental health complaints. Is there anything you as a clinician can do to address the root source of their problems?

You are invited to contemplate these questions by spending an evening exploring the science of belonging with Dr. Geoffrey L. Cohen, author of Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides .

Please join us to enjoy the feeling of belonging with colleagues at our next Doctors’ Lounge event.

RE: The sense of belonging for Torontonians, see page 52: https://www.environicsinstitute.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/tf---scs2022---final---digital-final-ua52844d4113104e2899d928c42c4c367f.pdf?sfvrsn=69940316_0

The impact of COVID on belonging and its health implications https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/sipr.12086

January 25: An Evening with Elizabeth Svoboda

As we enter 2023, operating within a system that is collapsing all around us, you may be asking yourself, how can I go on helping others ?

To gain perspective, a bigger question might be, what motivates you to help others? What happens when one’s identity transforms into that of “ the helper?”

You are invited to spend an hour with Elizabeth Svoboda, author of What Makes a Hero: The Surprising Science of Selflessness to explore the subject matter of her book.

In the second hour, her recent article in Scientific American on moral injury will serve as the starting point for a discussion, as we share thoughts about moral injury, an emerging phenomenon that you will be hearing more about in the coming years.

You and members of your support system are invited to join your colleagues on Bell’s Let’s Talk Day to do just that: talk, and just as importantly, listen.