Annual Carl Moore Lectureship

2007 Carl Moore Lectureship

Generous Medicine: How Physicians-as-Providers Can Remain Healers

Dr. Arthur Frank presented at the ninth annual Carl Moore Lecture held May 3rd, 2007
By: Dr. Amanda Jerome, MD., BHSc.
_{March 19, 2007}

Dr. Arthur Frank shared his sociological perspective on how healthcare providers can maintain their role as caregiver through the virtue of “generosity” at the ninth annual Carl Moore Lecture in Primary Care, in May 2007 at Geraldo’s at LaSalle Park in Burlington.

Patients and health care providers work together in a space known as "clinical medicine". Dr. Frank feels that in this new century, this space has become increasingly crowded with standards of practice, billing and reimbursement procedures, corporate and institutional interests, tests and technologies, and the unprecedented availability of information to patients. As medicine becomes more managerial and less artful, generosity emerges as the virtue that separates those who deserve to be called caregivers from mere treatment providers. He questions whether caregivers still exist, or is this role being lost to the more managerial role of mere treatment provider? This lecture presents the necessity and the difficulties of generosity in 21st century medicine.

Dr. Arthur Frank, an eminent sociologist who has thought and written about these issues for many years, believes there is an answer in the virtue he calls "generosity". Dr Frank is a professor of sociology at University of Calgary and has been a visiting professor at the University of Otago New Zealand and the University of Sydney. The author of numerous journal articles and book chapters, he has also published "At the Will of he Body: Reflections on Illness" and "The Wounded Storyteller” and "The Renewal of Generosity: Illness, Medicine and How to Live".

DR. CARL MOORE

Dr. Carl Moore, Professor of Emeritus, retired from McMaster University on June 30, 1997. Dr. Moore began his professional career as a community based family physician in the Hamilton area. He was Chair of the McMaster University Department of Family Medicine from 1975 to 1986. During his tenure as Chair, he worked with the fledgling Department and a group of committed community physicians further to further develop Family Medicine as a recognized discipline in Canada. Throughout his career, Dr. Moore was in the forefront of innovation in primary care service, education, research, and policy development. Dr. Moore assumed numerous leadership roles at international, national, and provincial levels, but maintained a local focus through leadership activities within the Hamilton Academy of Medicine, Regional Medical Associates, Hamilton District Health Council, McMaster University, Chedoke-McMaster Hospitals, the Rotary Club and the Hamilton Auto Club.

The Department of Family Medicine honours Dr. Carl Moore’s contributions to the development of primary care through an annual lectureship in his name. The event brings timely and provocative topics with local, national, and international significance to a forum that welcomes the McMaster, Hamilton, and wider community to better understand and respond to issues in Primary Care.

THE CARL MOORE LECTURE IN PRIMARY CARE

Each year, the lectureship is awarded to an individual who has made an important contribution to the understanding or development of primary care as a researcher, educator, analyst, advocate or policy maker, and has the ability to present a lecture that will engage, challenge, and be accessible to a general audience.

The lectureship is planned by an interdisciplinary team with interest and expertise in the topic area being presented. Undergraduate students in the health sciences, and family medicine residents and fellows work with faculty to plan educational activities with the visiting lecturers. The Carl Moore lecturers provide inspiration for us to reflect on complex issues, create new curriculum, initiate academic work, and engage with others to further the development of primary care.

The Department of Family Medicine is working toward a fundraising goal of $100,000 to ensure that the lectureship will continue in perpetuity as an occasion for world-class speakers to provide a global perspective on the development of our discipline.

Past Lectures

• Dr. Arthur Frank (2007), Professor of Sociology, University of Calgary, Canada, Generous Medicine
• Dr. Marla Shapiro (2006), Family Physician, Toronto, Canada, Finding Balance
• Dr. Iona Heath (2005), General Practitioner, UK, The Promotion of Disease and the Corrosion of Medicine
• Dr. Michael Gordon (2004), Geriatric Physician, Canada, Humanity in Long Term Care: Ethical, Clinical and Social Challenges
• Dr. David Kuhl (2003), Palliative Care Physician, Canada, Facing Death; Embracing Life
  
• Dr. Wendy Orr (2002), General Practitioner, South Africa, Ethics and Human Rights in Medical Practice: A South African Experience
  
• Dr. Roger Strasser (2001), General Practitioner, Australia, Training for Rural Practice: Lessons from Australia
  
• Dr. Carol Herbert (2000), Family Physician, Canada, Canadian Family Medicine in the 21st Century: Meeting the Challenges
  
• Dr. Andrew Willis (1999), General Practitioner, United Kingdom, Developments in Primary Care in the UK NHS: Lessons From Us All