June 9

Some see June 21 as the beginning of the summer season; for some, it’s the beginning of the noise season.

The chaotic cacophony is creeping up in all of our cities. Day, night, and increasingly year-round, people are being disturbed by all kinds of noise. The physical and mental health impacts can be significant, and mounting a defense can seem impossible. 

What are the health consequences of noise? What can you, as a physician, do about it?

How can you determine if noise pollution is a health risk for your patients?

Rather than letting leaf blowers blow away your patience, you are invited to learn from our speakers and share your experiences regarding noise pollution.

Dr. Tor Oiamo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University. His current research in environmental health geography focuses on environmental determinants of health such as noise pollution. Through collaboration with institutions such as Health Canada and Toronto Public Health, his research activities are oriented towards relevant environmental decision-making and policy arenas.

 Ingrid Buday is founder and Executive Director of No More Noise, a federal not for profit advocating for the restoration of urban calm . See their website for more information. 

 Please join us.

May: stay tuned

April 20: Lunch with Dr. Neil Theise

You are invited to a special daytime edition of the Doctors’ Lounge series.

 As Earth Day approaches, we are asked to reflect on the interconnectedness of life on this planet.

It is also a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the interconnectedness of life within the human body.

Recent research through microanatomic mapping has reframed the interstitium as a body-wide network composed of three domains: the intercellular space, the pericapillary space, and the fascial interstitia, which is now considered an integrated organ system.

If you haven’t given much thought to fascia since seeing it as the stuff that got in the way of your dissection in first-year medical school, this will be your opportunity for a radical update of your understanding of what is holding us together.

Dr Theise is Adjunct Professor of Pathology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, with a research career spanning chronic liver disease, cancer biology, adult stem cells, and the anatomy of the human interstitium. He is also the author of Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness and Being, long-listed for the 2023 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, and the forthcoming memoir Sarah in the In Between (Spiegel & Grau, 2026).

Related: https://radiolab.org/podcast/interstitium

March 31: The Narrative Imperative

 When does one become a doctor? Sure, graduation confirms it, but there are particular moments that lead to that time in “professional identity transformation” when one can finally say with confidence: “I am a doctor.” As spring arrives, in keeping with the season, you are invited to share your experiences of morphing from student caterpillar to physician butterfly with your colleagues during our annual Doctors’ Lounge Medical Storytelling Festival.

The evening will begin with presentations by Dr. Peter Newmanand Dr.  Marshall Korenblum.

Peter will be launching his new book, In Harm’s Way: A Doctor Let Loose in the World.

Marshall will be reflecting on being a physician for over half a century, many of those years spent as Psychiatrist-in-Chief at the Hincks-Dellcrest Centre for Children. He will also be musing on the future based on the past.

After their presentations, the remainder of the evening is dedicated to sharing your stories about the process that you went through in identifying with our profession (or possibly when your identity was shaken). Does retirement change one’s identity? Join us and find out if you are destined to be a physician for life!

Presenters are asked to keep their contributions to less than 5 minutes (we welcome creative 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 that explores illness, healing, perceptions of the body, and encounters with healthcare.

Image courtesy of Grok

FEBRUARY 23: An Evening with Dr Zhuo (Shawn) Shao

 Family Day is an opportune time to reflect on the influence of genetics and epigenetics on our health. Rapid advances in the field may leave you confused about when to order genetic testing or how to interpret results, even if you didn’t order the test (e.g. if a patient went directly to a lab like LifeLabs).

You are invited to spend an evening with a clinical geneticist to get an overview of the field and to receive direct answers to your questions.

Our guide for the evening will be Dr. Zhuo (Shawn) Shao. Dr. Shao completed medical school at McGill University and residency in Medical Genetics and Genomics at the University of Toronto. He also has a Ph.D. in pharmacology and therapeutics from McGill. He completed his post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School, Boston Children’s Hospital. His passion is in genome-guided therapeutic approaches, including pharmacogenomics.

January 20: An Evening with Dr. Amardeep Singh Mangat

 The new year is traditionally a time associated with making healthier choices.

So why can those choices be so hard to make, given that the outcome may be a potentially better quality and quantity of life?

Please choose to join us as we begin the 22^nd year of the Doctors’ Lounge series with an exploration of the epidemic of chronic illnesses that can be managed or even reversed with guidance from experts in “lifestyle medicine.”

Our guide for the evening is general internist Dr. Amardeep Singh Mangat, who is on staff at North York General Hospital. Dr. Mangat is the medical director of the Aroga Lifestyle Medical Clinic in Ontario. He is a lecturer at the University of Toronto and serves on the clinical faculty and Dean’s Council at Toronto Metropolitan University School of Medicine.

Image courtesy of Grok

December 8: An Evening with Dr. Brennan Spiegel

You are invited to join us for the closing program of the 21^st year of the Doctors’ Lounge series as Dr. Brennan Spiegel, MD, professor of Medicine and Public Health at Cedars-Sinai and UCLA, will provide us with an overview of his new book, PULL: How Gravity Shapes Your Body, Steadies the Mind, and Guides Our Health, Dr. Spiegel will explore how this invisible force influences everything from our brains to our bowels (he is a gastroenterologist with a special interest in IBS). He will introduce us to his vision for a new field he calls biogravitational medicine—and will show us how, by understanding how to build “gravity resilience,”  we can benefit both ourselves and our patients.

Dr. Spiegel is also a pioneer in artificial intelligence and virtual reality. He is the author of over 300 peer-reviewed papers and 8 medical textbooks. His work spans medicine, behavioral science, and emerging technology.

Please join us as we enter the holiday season with an examination of our place as humans under the influence of gravity, looking at life from Dr. Spiegel’s unique perspective.