April: Common Sense Oncology

Details to follow 

https://commonsenseoncology.org/

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.

November 11: Our Annual Remembrance Day Program: POSTPONED due to unforseen circumstances

 Support for the anti-racism movement, opposing the promotion of the superiority of one race over another, should be a no-brainer for physicians and the organizations that represent them. Sadly, our profession has had a history of supporting racism, as manifested in support for the eugenics movement by many of the thought leaders of the day, culminating with the tragedy of of the Holocaust, driven by the ideology of Nazi physicans.

As part of our collective responsibility for the past, perhaps we, as physicians, should be at the forefront of creating a healthier future, by opposing the underlying premise of racism, that is, that races even exist.

Our guests for the evening have recently penned the following article for your consideration on that topic.

Please join us as Dr. David Livingstone Smith and his life partner, Dr. Subrena E. Smith, lead us  on a thought provoking journey on the concept of race within the medical context.

Related reading: STAT investigation on Embedded Bias

October 22: An Evening with Professors Michael Heller & James Salzman

“Breath after breath, breath in, breath out, everything can be understood by understanding the ownership of a breath”

-Ecclesiastes 1:2*

 As Thanksgiving approaches, adopting a mindset of gratitude can be challenging in a world that is increasingly filled with strife, both locally and globally. A significant source of those conflicts can be traced to the concept of ownership. To help you understand the complexities of that topic, you are invited to spend an evening with the authors of arguably one of the best books written for the public on the subject: Mine! How The Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives.

We are privileged to have these two world-renowned teachers guide us on a journey that you have been on for your entire life.

Please join us. Bring a guest. Begin a discussion. After all, that is what the Doctors’ Lounge series is all about.

 * This dynamic translation of the original Hebrew  הֲבֵ֥ל הֲבָלִ֖ים הַכֹּ֥ל הָֽבֶל   is attributed to the Potzker Rebbe.

RESCEDULED TO TUESDAY AUGUST 20: An Evening with Dr. Eugene Lipov

Innovation in medicine often seems to either have a very long thinkubation period*or explode into clinical use almost overnight.

Other effective treatments seem to languish in silos of enthusiastic acceptance by select practitioners, despite positive outcomes for the patients receiving those treatments.

You are invited to spend an evening exploring one of those treatments.

Our guide will be Dr. Eugene Lipov, a pioneer in the use of stellate ganglion block (SGB) to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

His success in doing so has also made him an advocate for changing the language we use in creating labels for our patients’ conditions, as labels have the power to either help or hinder the healing process .He has suggested replacing the term Disorder with the word Injury, to create the treatable condition PTSI. By doing so, he invites the possibility of hope of recovery through a change in our use of language.

You are invited to join us for an exploration of the power of innovative off-label prescribing through the lens of almost two decades of Dr. Lipov’s experience refining a potentially life- altering procedure. As always, your insights are welcomed to enrich the learning experience.

*thinkubation period: the time between inspiration, perspiration and implementation

Wednesday May 22: An Evening with Dr. Adil Shamji

Victoria Day is a good time to start thinking about parks and gardens.

It is also a good time to the think about Queen’s Park, which is named in honour of Queen Victoria.

Given the complexities of the bureaucracies of government can one person make a difference?

You are invited to explore that possibility with our guest for the evening, Dr. Adil Shamji, the only physician sitting in the Ontario Legislature.

The concept of medicine as a calling, or anything being described as a calling can be seen as antiquated.

Yet, every one of of our patients calls us for help.

Sometimes, something bigger calls.

Please join us as Dr. Shamji explains his calling, and hear from your colleagues on their experiences with the power within each of us to move the world in a positive direction.

April 25: An Evening with Dr. Robert Pearl

Medicine is a culture of caring, and it is unlikely that we as physicians can ever be replaced by artificial intelligence or robotics.

If you believe either of those two premises, you are invited to challenge yourself by spending an evening in the Doctors’ Lounge with Dr. Robert Pearl, author of the book Uncaring: How the Culture of Medicine Kills Doctors & Patients, as well as the upcoming book ChatGPT, MD: How AI-empowered patients and doctors can take back control of American medicine.

In his latest book, Dr. Pearl argues that AI technologies will become as integral and essential to future physicians as the stethoscope was for centuries. The future may see AI serve as a colleague for healthcare professionals and as a source of expertise for patients, empowering both in ways previously unimaginable. Used by doctors and patients together, ChatGPT will be able to improve health, ease demand on physicians, and generate the time clinicians need to restore the doctor-patient relationship. Or, it may become the stuff of dystopian nightmares. You are invited to learn from a professor at the Stanford University Schools of Medicine and Business and share your own insights about the not-too-distant future.

Tuesday March 26: The Narrative Imperative: Our Annual Medical Storytelling Evening

In the 4 years since COVID changed the world, uncertainty has permeated our lives.

As a Professor of Emergency Medicine with a love for the humanities, Dr. Jay Baruch  long ago embraced that uncertainty into his professional life, and has channeled it into his award-winning writing, most recently in his latest book Tornado of Life.

Dr. Baruch is also an international advisory board member of University of Toronto’s Narrative-Based Medicine Lab.

You are invited to  spend an evening with him and your colleagues reflecting on the messiness of life, and the power of storytelling to bring some order to that chaos, during our annual Doctors’ Lounge  Festival of Medical Storytelling.

Please join us for an evening dedicated to sharing stories, poems, songs and artwork about our experiences as physicians within the health-care system, whether as  providers or recipients of medical care.

You, as a potential presenter, are asked to keep your contribution 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 once again a fully interactive experience (even though it will be held on Zoom).

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.

LEAP DAY: An Evening with Dr. Adam Kassam

 At the core of the evolution of our profession lies the process of innovation.

Sometimes innovation takes hold too early, sometimes it comes too late.

What has your experience been with the pace of innovation in medicine?

How does the process of innovation work, from brain cells to bedside?

You are invited to spend the evening with former OMA President Dr. Adam Kassam, as he shares with us his insights on medical innovation from the perspective of his journey as Executive Director, Office of Health Innovation & Strategy at Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Medicine.