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.