Congregation Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem Congregation in Côte Saint-Luc has a wealth of medical expertise among its membership so it only made sense when President Jonathan Gal and his predecessor Judah Aspler agreed to follow up on my suggestion and start a new Mini-Med series. Rabbi Yechezkel Freundlich fully supported the concept, was in attendance and asked a question.
On November 10 experts in the field of cardiology were paired with medical students for this free lecture.Dr. Lawrence Rudski, Chief of cardiology at the Jewish General Hospital and Director of the Azrieli Heart Center, chaired and moderated the evening. Recognizing that the nearby Adath Congregation in Hampstead was presenting a comedy night, Dr. Rudski delivered a few funny jokes of his own.
About 100 chairs were setup for the event. But a half hour before the start every seat was filled, forcing the synagogue's jack of all trades Yakov Lev to more than double the capacity. By the time things got going it was standing room only – a message that these kind of talks are very much in demand.
A big credit to Dr. Rudski for his brilliant idea of pairing medical students – the next generation- with senior physicians.
The lineup looked as follows:
- McGill Med 1 student Jack Rudski (Who needs a blood thinner for atrial fibrillation, and which?) and Dr Stanley Nattel, clinical cardiologist and Director of the Electrophysiology Research Axis at the Research Centre of the Montreal Heart Institute (Advances in atrial fibrillation treatment)
- McGill Med 2 student Alexandra Cohen (How do women present with heart disease and why?) and Dr. Shoshana Leah Gal Portnoy, a cardiologist at the Hôpital Notre-Dame (Cardiac Rehab: Get Moving!)
- McGill Med 3 student Eliana Sacher (Who should take an Aspirin or a cholesterol pill?) and Dr. Mark Eisenberg, an interventional cardiologist at the JGH and Director of McGill’s MD-PhD program; Professor of Medicine (New interventions in the cath lab)
- McGill Med 4 student Uri Bender (Why do some people get angioplasty and others need bypass surgery?) and Dr. Emmanuel Moss, Gross Tietolbaum Distinguished Scientist in Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery at the JGH (Robotic bypass and valve surgery).
Dr. Moss was on CJAD with Andrew Carter the day before and gave a small preview of his fascinating presentation. You can hear it by clicking here.
There were questions and answers at the end of each segment and then at the conclusion. When it was all over, many of those on hand got to talk to some of the speakers one on one. I heard so many good things about this lecture and Gal promises there will be more. The next one will likely be some time in the spring. With expertise in fields such as gastroenterology, urology, neurology, orthopedics, geriatrics and a whole lot more there are no shortage of topics.