Here are the presenters for the second day of the 2017 Lorne Trottier public science symposium series, Mind Matters: The Body-Mind Connection.
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Roundtable discussion
1:30 —3:00pm, McGill Faculty Club, 3450 McTavish Street. Open to the public.
Roundtable participants:
- Patch Adams, MD, Founder, The Gesundheit Institute
- Arie Benchetrit, MD, FRCS(C), Plastic Surgeon, Cosmedica Clinic
- Adam Oliver Brown, PhD, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Science and Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, McGill Office for Science and Society Associate
- Yoni Freedhoff, MD, CCFP, Assistant Professor of Family Medicine, University of Ottawa, Medical Director, Bariatric Medical Institute
- Abraham Fuks, MD, CM, FRCP(C), Professor of Medicine, McGill University
- Ian Gold, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy & Department of Psychiatry, McGill University
- Laurence J. Kirmayer, MD, FRSC, Director, Division of Social & Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University
- André Picard, Health columnist, The Globe and Mail
- Amir Raz, PhD, ABPH, Canada Research Chair in the Cognitive Neuroscience of Attention, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University
- Joe Schwarcz, Director, Office for Science and Society, McGill University
- Lorne Trottier, co-founder Matrox and sponsor of McGill’s Trottier Public Science Symposium
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Dr. Patch Adams: "Humour and Health"
In this funny and inspirational lecture, Patch discusses his 30+ years of clowning experience and the relationship between humour and health.
Biography: Patch Adams, MD, is an internationally known speaker on wellness, humor, and joy. He approaches the issues of personal, community, and global health with “zestful exuberance,” according to Time Magazine. Dr. Adams believes that “the most revolutionary act one can commit in our world is to be happy.”
“Extraordinary! A man I can look up to and respect,” “Incredibly mind blowing and memorable,” and “Inspiring, amazing human being — invaluable to hear first-hand,” are all testimonies of people who have had the chance to hear Dr. Patch Adams, the real man behind the hit Hollywood film Patch Adams.
Patch is a medical doctor, a clown, and a social activist who has devoted 30 years to changing America's healthcare system. He believes that laughter, joy and creativity are integral parts of the healing process. Doctors and patients in his model relate to each other on the basis of mutual trust, and patients receive plenty of time from their doctors. Allopathic doctors and practitioners of alternative medicine work side by side in Patch’s model. If you think that all sounds like a utopian impossibility, it isn't! Patch and his colleagues have practiced medicine at the Gesundheit Institute together in West Virginia that way for 43 years in what Patch refers to as their “pilot project.”
Through the success of this program at the West Virginia location, a model health care facility is being planned on 310 acres purchased in Pocahontas County, WV. The Institute will include a 40-bed hospital, a theater, arts and crafts shops, horticulture and vocational therapy. Over five years ago, Dr. Adams temporarily stopped seeing patients so that he could coordinate plans for raising the $5 million needed for the Institute's permanent and expanded home, a “model health care community.”