Daily News

Posted on Dec. 12: Doing the right thing

Enjoy what you do, but make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. That's the advice for medical students from Peter Dent, a 40-year veteran of pediatrics and medical education. "If you're looking for self-fulfillment it's possible to find that," says Dent. "But if it's your only reason for doing it then you're doing medicine and society a disservice. You have to see medicine not as a way of earning a living, but as a social commitment." Dent's commitment has been a strong one and his medical career during "an explosion of new knowledge" has included many roles. He is currently the associate vice-president, clinical services for the Faculty of Health Sciences. Dent is also a professor emeritus of pediatrics and head of the department's rheumatology division. He is deputy chief of pediatrics for McMaster Children's Hospital and, as a pediatric rheumatologist, has an active practice both at McMaster Children's Hospital and at the Children's Hospital of Western Ontario in London, Ont. This month he was recognized with the designation of Master from the American College of Rheumatology. Only five other Canadians have received the award, which is given to physicians who have significantly furthered the art and science of rheumatology. "It was never an issue of being a doctor," Dent says of his career choice. "It was about being a pediatrician."

Posted on Dec. 11: Mini-symposium to explore policy roles in health care

If Canada allows private funding of healthcare, administration costs will skyrocket, warns Steffie Woolhandler, a leading health policy researcher from Harvard Medical School. Woolhandler will discuss her recent publication in the New England Journal of Medicine during a mini-symposium Dec. 16, at McMaster University. Her talk Profits from Pain: A Story of Health Care in the U.S. will be preceded by the lecture Your Money and Your Life, by P.J. Devereaux and Public and Private Roles in Health Care: Trying to Make Sense of the Confusion by Jeremiah Hurley, both of McMaster. The mini-symposium is sponsored by the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis.

Posted on Dec. 10: One-night gala supports dream lab for ground-breaking research

McMaster stem cell researcher Laurie Doering was honored last night at a one-night only cryogenic stem cell lab, at the residence of His Excellency Haim Divon, ambassador of the State of Israel to Canada. At the lab, guests viewed brain cells under a $125,000 high-power microscope, sipped martinis amidst state-of-the-art lab equipment and witnessed the instant freezing and shattering of martini-bound fruit every time a donation in the fight against Parkinson's was made. The event was presented by Ottawa's Thomas C. Assaly Foundation, whose founder was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. Assaly announced at the event that he is making the largest-ever private donation to Parkinson's research in McMaster University's history. In an effort to encourage other guests to donate towards a dream-lab for Doering's ground-breaking research, nearly every piece of equipment essential for his work was set-up and on display. After learning about the role that each device plays, guests filled out 'wish list' cards to help purchase the equipment for Doering's lab.