The first PACE conversation of the new year takes place Jan. 15 at the Community Health Centres of Toronto in Port Hope, when Dr. Mark Essak discusses Medical Assistance In Dying – Where Are We in 2020?
Dr. Essak's talk will look at the legislative amendments that led to Canada's legalization of MAID, eligibility requirements for MAID, and the statistics available to date on uptake in Ontario and beyond.
A family physician with more than 30 year of experience, Dr. Essak practices with the Northumberland Family Health Team, a network of 20 affiliated physicians and regulated health-care professionals serving more than 26,000 West Northumberland patients.
A past Northumberland Hills Hospital Chief of Staff, Dr. Essak was recognized in 2012 by the Rural Ontario Medicine Program for his long-standing commitment to mentoring the next generation of physicians, particularly those with an interest in rural community medicine.
He is also one of several local physicians with the specific training required to provide MAID to eligible patients, both in hospital and in the community.
PACE talks are free monthly public-education sessions on a broad range of health and wellness topics. They consistently draw large groups of community members with a range of questions and perspectives.
PACE stands for Personalized Assessment and Change Education, and the series began when Dr. Mukesh Bhargava (the current NHH Chief of Staff) noticed his patients were coming to him with some of the same questions relating to their own health and wellness.
Now it is a series that relies on the collaboration of a number of partners, including the Northumberland Family Health Team, internal-medicine specialists IMCare, the NHH Foundation, local patients and caregivers, and the Loyalist College Interactive Media Development Film and Television Program, which partners with organizers to support audio and visual recording and distribution of the talks - as well as NHH and the Community Health Centres of Northumberland in Port Hope, which is the two locations where the talks are presented on an alternating basis.
The sessions begin at 5:30 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month, each featuring a 30-minute talk, a 20-minute question-and-answer period and a 10-minute moderator summary.
Though admission is free, pre-registration is required to manage room capacity.
Register for Dr. Essak's session – to be held at the Community Health Centres of Northumberland at 99 Toronto Rd., Port Hope – by visiting www.pacetalks.com. At this site, you will also find a listing of upcoming speakers and topics, along with video highlights from last season's talks and video and audio recordings from PACE talks held earlier in the 2019-2020 season.
Registration will also open this week for the Feb. 19 PACE talk to be held at NHH (1000 DePalma Dr., Cobourg), when Dr. Alban Merepeza, Dr. Vineeta Ahooja, Dr. Barbara Weiss and Dr. Sarah Vosburgh will offer a panel discussion on Integrative Medicine.