U’Ren makes a compelling argument for a broader approach to mental health. He points out that the least affluent members of society have the poorest mental health, while the rich typically fare much better. However, a gradient exists between the two extremes, such that individuals in the middle of the social class hierarchy experience better health than the poor, but worse than the rich. In essence, social disparities become also health disparities.

U’Ren believes that a more complete picture of a patient’s mental health depends on understanding the nature and distribution of resources such as income, wealth, education, and social ties and connections. He also points out that American society has become increasingly unequal in recent decades. There is evidence that this increasing inequality is resulting in poorer mental (and physical) health for a large number of people.

One of the most intriguing chapters of the book discusses the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders – the DSM. Drawing extensively on the work of Allan V. Horowitz and Jerome C. Wakefield, U’Ren argues that the DSM encourages the diagnosis of specific disorders as “internal dysfunctions” in individuals. This exclusive focus on the individual is, in U’Ren’s view, too limited, and is one of the factors responsible for the neglect of a social perspective in mental health work. “A lot of symptoms that we see in clinical practice, anxiety and depression being the major ones, are not necessarily disorders but rather non-specific responses to difficult life circumstances,” he says. The DSM “pays lip service to social factors.”

Richard U'Ren, MDCM'64

U’Ren’s book gets to the very heart of what is even considered “medical” at all. In chapter 7, he describes the work of sociologist and internist Howard Waitzkin, who studied the transcripts of conversations between family practitioners and patients over several years. “Waitzkin found that practitioners systematically excluded social issues from their dialogue with patients.” Sidelining social issues led to the reinterpretation of social difficulties “into the language of individual symptoms.” Waitzkin borrowed a term from Karl Marx to describe what was happening: reification, “a process in which social relations and social processes become transformed into other things – symptoms and diagnoses in this case.”

To take just one real-life example cited by the book, a 55-year old man, a radial drill operator, goes to the doctor. Suffering from coronary artery disease, he recently had a heart attack and has also been diagnosed with severe depression. Returning to work worries him because his union is expected to go on strike. The doctor turns to the man’s wife and says, “I tell you if this guy stays home, he’s going to curl in a ball… he’s going to be unreachable.” The doctor makes it clear that he believes in the restorative power of work. His patient, though, is ambivalent.

In discussing this case, U’Ren says things are not as straight forward as the doctor claims. “While employment is indeed generally good for health, distinctions must be made,” he writes. “The doctor either ignores or is oblivious to the financial problems his patient will face… The doctor transmits the message that work is beneficial to the patient’s health.” Missing from the conversation is an acknowledgement that returning to work means dealing with certain stresses. U’Ren believes health professionals often fail to engage in such conversations because their training has encouraged a focus on the individual. “I think an informed discussion about the context of these problems represents a mode of approach that may be more useful than just medication.”

If reification occurs frequently among physicians and to a lesser though still substantial degree among psychologists and psychiatrists, the implications go well beyond the medical field. Far from being “internal dysfunctions,” many common psychological problems are in fact exactly what a professional should expect to see in a society where large numbers of people struggle to make ends meet and lack a sense of control over their lives.

“Many of the things I write about in this book are things that people know about intuitively,” says U’Ren. He describes how most parents attempt to provide the best for their children – essentially to try and secure them a place in society where they are more likely to succeed materially, and by consequence, be healthier, happier, and less vulnerable to the stressors that a lack of resources entails. “This is naturally easier to do if parents have more resources in the first place,” he says.

Is there anything that can be done about the social inequalities that underlie resource inequalities? “The natural conclusion of this book is that social action is necessary in order to reduce the degree of inequality that makes our glaring mental and physical health differences possible,” says U’Ren.

[Laurence Miall]

He is described by family members as “uncompromising,” “dedicated” and “precise.” Philippe Leblond, BEng’60, the oldest of Leblond’s children, says “in his lab, there was one day a year that everyone hated. He forced everybody to empty their closets and their drawers onto the floor and then put everything back into place.”

Leblond’s dedication and precision served him well. During the early stages of his career, he pioneered the use of autoradiography, a procedure that permits the observation of changes in the cells of living organisms. He struggled with several aspects of this procedure, notably, the short half-life of the radioactive isotopes. Gertrude Sternschuss (to whom Leblond was married for 64 years) would inject iodine isotopes into rats and Leblond would hurry to his lab to quickly dissect them. But the isotopes in the target specimens typically decayed within 25 minutes, leaving Leblond with little or nothing to observe.

Leblond’s first truly successful applications of autoradiography were achieved at McGill during the 1940s. Philippe, then just a boy, remembers giving a helping hand. “He had this Geiger counter. It was this huge box, with vacuum tubes in it. At night we had to do counts of the background radioactivity. I’d have to sit there as this thing went, one, two, three…”

These experiments were carried out in the Strathcona Building, at that time the headquarters of the Faculty of Medicine, the Osler Library and a museum. Philippe describes how he would sometimes take a break from the Geiger counter and wander around marveling at the museum’s eclectic holdings, which included an Inuit totem pole and the fetuses of Siamese twins in formaldehyde.

It was only after successfully using markers with a longer half-life and increasing the resolution of autoradiography that Leblond was able to achieve his breakthrough results. What he found was proof of the rapid turnover of cells. “The cells of the small intestine, for example, were reported to be replaced every two days – a concept originally dismissed by critics as ‘too silly for words.’”* Cell turnover is now, of course, a fundamental concept in biology.

Leblond was also an exceptional and truly unique teacher. Former students remember his multi-colour chalk drawings, rendered a half hour before class to illustrate his lectures in histology. His attention to detail was just as acute in the lecture hall as the lab. “When he was preparing a lecture he used to spend a lot of time with my mother going over each slide,” recalls Marie-Pascale Leblond, his daughter. “Because he had an accent, he wanted to pronounce things perfectly.” Everyone who met him also speaks of his personal trademark – his love of purple –inspired by the periodic acid-Schiff stain, which influenced his wardrobe and home furnishings.

Despite his work ethic, by no means was Leblond perpetually cloistered in a lab, office or lecture hall. He also believed in an active social life and taking breaks from McGill. Grand-daughter Sabrina Leblond-Murphy fondly recalls Leblond’s country house, Val Mauve, named, of course, for Leblond’s favourite colour. “In the city he was always dressed immaculately in a perfect suit,” Sabrina says. “When he was in the country, he allowed himself to wear jeans. He would put on his Wellingtons and go out.” At Val Mauve he loved to feed the ducks. He even built a shelter for them.

After his wife Gertrude passed away, Leblond re-married. Both bride and groom were 91.

Philippe, Marie-Pascale and Sabrina have inherited some of Leblond’s traits while each finding a unique career path. Philippe trained as an engineer at McGill and worked in the field for several decades before eventually turning to his current field, Feldenkrais, which he describes as a “systems engineer’s perspective on neuro-muscular dysfunction.” Marie-Pascale teaches biology at the Collège de Rosement, not surprisingly an occupation that her father approved of and for which he gave her valuable advice along the way.

Sabrina is currently an MDCM student in the very same faculty to which her grandfather dedicated over half his life. But the road to McGill was far from smooth. In July 2008, just two months before she was scheduled to write the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), she was diagnosed with leukemia. It wasn’t until June 2010 that she was well enough to resume her MCAT studies and apply to medical school. The experience of illness is one she says will definitely shape how she will practice medicine.

Each family member gives a description of Leblond. “He had the highest levels of integrity,” Philippe says. “He never sacrificed his values for something he had to do.” Marie-Pascale calls her father “disciplined, determined and uncompromising on the quality of the work he did.” Sabrina has the final word. “What I’ve taken from him is this: if you don’t know the answer to something, say so. Then go out and find the answer.”

Sabrina Leblond-Murphy, Philippe Leblond and Marie-Pascale Leblond with Abe Fuks, BSc’68, MDCM’70, who presented at the symposium held in CP Leblond's honour during Homecoming 2011. Photo: Nicholas Morin

* From an obituary by Gary Bennett, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, McGill University and Antonio Haddad, Departamento de Biologia Celular, University of Sao Paulo

[Laurence Miall]

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

8:30 a.m. – 5:45 p.m.

LOCATION: MaRS Discovery District, 101 College Street, Suite 100, Toronto

About:As the title suggests, the 2012 Symposium will move the discussion further along to treatment, and will look at examples of programs that address first episode and early detection, with a particular focus on schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. There will also be a section on children and youth mental health. This will not just be a series of presentations: the goal of this Symposium is to discuss how best to promote patient-oriented research networks across Canada to accelerate the discovery and adoption of meaningful change in the diagnosis and treatment of individuals living with chronic forms of mental illness.

SPEAKERS

• Jean Addington, Alberta Centennial Mental Health Research Chair & Novartis Chair in Schizophrenia Research; Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB

• Catherine Burrows, Youth Programs Director, Mental Illness Foundation, Montréal, QC, joined by Bianca Petrilli and James Graves, two Partners for Life facilitators

• Rupert Duchesne, Chair, Brain Canada; President and CEO AIMIA Inc

• Anne C. Duffy, Professor Senior Clinical Research Scholar Department of Psychiatry Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS

• Robert K. Heinssen, Director, Division of Services and Intervention Research, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, M.D., USA

• Michael Krausz, UBC Providence Leadership Chair for Addiction Research; Professor of Psychiatry, School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia (UBC); UBC Program Director Addiction Psychiatry, Vancouver, BC

• Stanley Kutcher, Sun Life Financial Chair in Adolescent Mental Health, Dalhousie University and the IWK Health Center, Halifax, NS

• Ashok Malla, Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Adjunct Professor, Department of Epidemiology, McGill University; Director, Prevention and Early intervention Program for Psychoses, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montréal, QC

• Husseini K. Manji, Global Therapeutic Area Head, Neuroscience Research & Development, Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals Group, NJ, USA

• Anthony Phillips, Scientific Director, CIHR Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction; Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia; Senior Scientist, UBC-VCHRI Brain Research Centre, Vancouver, BC

• Delbert Robinson, Professor of Psychiatry and of Molecular Medicine, Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine, Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, NY, USA

• Nina R. Schooler, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY, USA

• Peter Szatmari, Chedoke Health Corporation Chair in Child Psychiatry Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON

• Gustavo Turecki, Professor and Vice-Chair, Research and Academic Affairs, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University; Director, McGill Group for Suicide Studies; Head, Depressive Disorders Program; Douglas Mental Health Institute, Montréal, QC

• Robert B. Zipursky, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON

REGISTRATION

Please register in advance to attend this event. There is no registration fee. To register, please visit our website at www.grahamboeckhfoundation.org or for more information call 514-904-0551.

PARTNERS

Partners include the Canadian Institutes of Health Research-Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, CHU Sainte-Justine, University of Toronto, McGill University, Université de Montréal, Brain Canada, Brain & Behavior Research Foundation and Mental Health Commission of Canada.

The McGill years (1959-1963) provided his MD and Master of Surgery (MDCM) qualifications. “McGill was the best academic choice I ever made. We had a great class and world-class professors.” He met Joyce Moore, MDCM’63, in the anatomy lab and by second year they were married.

After a rotating internship at the Cook County Hospital (CCH) in Chicago and two years in the US Army, Dr. Boyd accepted a fellowship in shock trauma research at the University of Maryland. Looking for more clinical exposure in trauma care, he went back to CCH — which treated about 7,000 gunshot wounds per year. “I also saw this as a goldmine for academic research and teaching in trauma surgery and critical care medicine. I used the William Osler teaching approach from McGill as a guiding principle for setting up a program.”

CCH was exploring another dimension of trauma care at the time: organizing a single ward with the equipment and experienced people who can deal with the din, distress and demoralization. Dr. Boyd threw himself into this process. The trauma care doctor with new ideas was frequently asked to be a public speaker. He was declared one of the city’s Outstanding Men by the Chicago Junior Association of Commerce and Industry. Governor Richard B. Ogilvie of Illinois tapped him to set up a state-wide trauma and EMS system, emphasizing the critical aspect of getting the urgently wounded patient to competent definitive care as soon as possible. Despite warnings it would end his academic career, he took the challenge. “I went into it anyway, deluding myself that this would be over quickly and I could get back to teaching and research soon.”

The choice of Trauma Center hospitals, which was essential to establishing the Regional Trauma and Emergency Medical Services System, turned into a political hot potato, but he found the challenges invigorating. “We were making a difference on a big scale.” His work on EMS culminated in being appointed by President Gerald R. Ford as National Director of Emergency Medical Services Systems, to replicate the “Trauma/EMS Systems Model” in some 304 Regionalized Systems for a comprehensive national program. Later as a consultant he helped organize EMS systems in China, Japan, Finland, England, Portugal, Italy, Kuwait, Egypt, USSR, and several Canadian provinces. “I didn’t get a contract in Quebec,” he adds, “but I was delighted when an official told me they were already using ‘le modèle Boyd’ for their EMS system.”

Returning to medical practice, Dr. Boyd worked both in trauma and general surgery at the Blackfeet Indian reservation in Montana and other native communities. He became involved in issues such as teen alcohol use, EMS, and tele-medicine. Today he is National Trauma Systems Coordinator for the Indian Health Service.

Dr. Boyd helped his McGill Medical Class of 1963 to hold memorable and well attended reunions, with generous class participation that established a sizable endowment for scholarship support for young McGill medical Students with financial need.

His most cherished recognition is the Blackfeet Nation’s honorary name, Pita Ana (Eagle Man).

[Malcolm McLean]

Dr. Boyd has published over 140 scientific articles on Trauma, Shock and Trauma/EMS Systems including a textbook on EMS Systems. He has received many honors including the “Distinguished Career Award” from the American Public Health Association (APHA), Injury Control and Emergency Medical Services Section in 1998, the National Safety Council (NSC) Surgeons’ Award for Service to Safety, and the Journal of EMS Physio Control “Living Legends of EMS Award” in 2006. His recent Robert E. Marshall Award stated: “Dr. David Boyd is recognized as the person responsible for developing the trauma care and emergency medical systems in use throughout the United States. Through his vision and unrelenting pursuit of accomplishment, Dr. Boyd is responsible for saving countless thousands of lives every year.”

2010's Goodman Gala was a roaring success. 2012 is already shaping up to become another legend in its time. Photo: Ryan Blau, PBL Photography

The Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Research Centre of the Faculty of Medicine of McGill University together with Rosalind and Morris Goodman are hosting the 2nd Goodman Cancer Research Gala on June 10, 2012.  Guests will be entertained courtesy of internationally-acclaimed Paul Chacra Entertainment. Grammy-nominated Jonathan Emile, Montreal-born rapper, poet, composer and cancer survivor, is sure to be a hit.

The evening’s dinner Chair will be Principal Emeritus of McGill, Bernard Shapiro, BA’56, LLD’88, officer of the Order of Canada and the Order of Quebec. Joining him will be Gala Co-Chairs Joanne and Douglas Cohen, BA’51, BCL’54, Vice-Chair Sandy Martz, B PHYS THER’69, BSc(PT)’76, and Fundraising Chair Rod Budd.

You can purchase individual tickets here, find out about sponsorship opportunities here, purchase an ad in the Program Book, find out about making a philanthropic gift here And even if you cannot attend the Gala, you can always support cancer research by donating to the Centre. Find out more here.

For further details about the Gala, please contact annette.novak@mcgill.ca

From left to right: Phil Gold, MDCM'61, MSc’61, PhD’65, Jacques Hendlisz, Rosalind Goodman, Daniel Kaufman, Fundraising Coordinator for the McGill Chapter of the Golden Key Honor Society, Andrew Rabinovitch, Viola Wang, Leah Brainerd, Jennifer Qian and Juliette Chausson

The students are part of a special fundraising team affiliated with the Golden Key Honor Society of McGill. They began their efforts a year ago, having decided to support Montreal-area charities. The team collaborated with the Macaroni Restaurant on St. Laurent and sold tickets on the McGill campus for a special Halloween party hosted by the restaurant. Ticket sales exceeded their expectations, enabling them to give a generous portion of the proceeds to basic cancer research.

The team continues to fundraise, dedicating itself to food drives and bake sales and other endeavours that support local causes.

When he was named the consulting cardiologist to the McGill Baffin Project in 1973, John H. Burgess, BSc’54, MDCM’58, didn’t know that he would end up falling in love with Canada’s North. He did, and spent the next three decades serving as a consulting cardiologist to the Inuit in Nunavut and Nunavik. Burgess has now retired from practice, but he has not stopped giving to the North. In the summer of 2011, he dedicated funds to create the Dr. John H. Burgess Distinguished Scholarship for students from indigenous communities in Canada enrolled in McGill’s Faculty of Medicine.

Enter first year med student Elaine Kilabuk, the first recipient of the Burgess Scholarship. Born in Iqaluit but brought up in Florida, Kilabuk is a fountain of warmth and energy. Upon meeting Burgess for the first time, she is soon trading stories of hiking in the Arctic and the difficult conditions that face physicians in the North. “I really became aware of it when my grandmother had COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease),” says Kilabuk, who was a teenager at the time. “I went with her to the local nursing centre, and it was striking how different it was from the facilities elsewhere. She had to be flown out for treatment.” It was this experience that made the young Kilabuk determined to return to the North to help out. Studying medicine is giving her that opportunity, and the new scholarship is, in turn, helping make it a reality.

Elaine Kilabuk talking to Dr. John Burgess. Photo: Owen Egan

Although she does not yet know what kind of medicine she will practice (she is currently thinking of Family Medicine) Kilabuk has already started to prove her dedication to Northern communities. In the spring of 2012, she is participating in a series about Inuit mentorship with the Aboriginal People’s Television Network, which will document her work with a physician based in Iqaluit. She is also looking into starting a program to promote careers in health care to Inuit students. She has already signed a contract with the Department of Health and Social Services in Nunavut agreeing to work in the area for four years following her residency.

Burgess talks about the changes he saw over his 30 years in the North. “When I first went up there was virtually no coronary disease,” he says. Now, after the introduction of the “southern” way of eating, that situation has changed drastically. “There is a real need for Inuit physicians,” says Burgess. “I always had to deal with people through an interpreter, and it wasn’t always easy to develop a rapport with my patients.” That he nevertheless succeeded is clear from his stories, and from the photos in his book, Doctor to the North, published in 2008 by McGill Queens University Press.

Elaine Kilabuk with a copy of the doctor's book, and John Burgess. Photo: Owen Egan

Kilabuk and Burgess leaf through the pages of the book together, pointing out photographs of familiar landmarks and recounting memories. “It was a tremendous experience,” says Burgess of his time in the North. “It was a big part of my life.” Now, thanks to students like Kilabuk, his legacy continues.

[Maria Turner]

Doctor to the North is available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble as well as many bookstores across Canada.

Feature photo at top: Entering the Arctic Circle: mountains 30 km north of Pangnirtung, Nunavut. Photo: John Burgess, and published in Doctor to the North.

March 13, 2012
6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Martin Theatre, McIntyre Medical Sciences Building, 1200 Pine Ave West, Montreal, Qc H3A 1X1

FACILITATOR

Nicole Beauchemin, PhD

• Basic science in lung cancer

• New advances and personalization of care

• Radiotherapy treatment in lung cancer

• Survivor’s Testimonial

FEATURING

Simon Rousseau, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine
Meakins-Christie Labs, McGill University

Jason Agulnik, MD
Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine
Medical Director, Pulmonary Oncology
Jewish General Hospital, McGill University

Bassam Abdulkarim, MD, PhD, FRCPC
Associate Professor, Department of Oncology
Chair, Division of Radiation Oncology, McGill University

Click here to download the flier for all sessions in the public forum series sponsored by the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Research Centre.