Get your ducks in a row before you die
By Cecilia Nasmith
The unofficial title of the April offering in the Northumberland PACE Speakers Series, as announced by Dr. Beth Selby at last week's Northumberland Hills Hospital board meeting, is Get Your Ducks In A Row Before You Die.
The official title of the April 26 talk is Getting Organized Before You Die, with presenters Selby and Scott MacCoubrey bringing a great deal of expertise to the 5:30 p.m. session.
Long-time NHH board member (and current chair) Selby holds masters and doctorate degrees in education from the University of Toronto, having held a range of roles in the Ontario education system from classroom teacher to principal, superintendent, supervisor of teacher interns and faculty advisor. She has also served her community as a YMCA Northumberland board member and past president of the Rotary Club of Cobourg.
MacCoubrey is the third generation of his family presiding over MacCoubrey Funeral Homes Ltd., with locations in both Colborne and Cobourg. His late father Robert MacCoubrey joined forces with the late philanthropist Bill Patchett to spearhead the massive fundraising campaign that built Northumberland Hills Hospital, from groundbreaking to its opening in 2003.
MacCoubrey is also a past president of the Rotary Club of Cobourg, as well as past chairman for the Ontario Independent Crematoriums and past president with the board of management for the Ontario Funeral Service Association.
At the PACE talk, he will provide a professional and logistical insight into the death-care industry. Selby's story is more personal, as she shares her recent experiences navigating the death of a loved one and its many intricacies.
As always, questions from the audience will be addressed as part of the program, and these can be e-mailed to mbhargava@imcare.ca prior to April 26 (or, time permitting, posed live during the event itself).
It was Dr. Mukesh Bhargava who originated the PACE talks (the acronym stands for Personalized Assessment and Change Education) as a way of tackling the questions and concerns that patients most often brought to him. Since 2018, the partners behind PACE (one of the newest of them being the Ontario Health Team-Northumberland) have hosted these free monthly sessions on a broad range of health and wellness topics, drawing large and interested groups. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the series to go virtual, but the interest has continued.
Each one-hour session includes a 30-minute talk, a 20-minute question-and-answer period with the presenter(s) and a short moderator summary. Bring your questions, suggestions and experiences, and join in what is expected to be another informative discussion on a topic chosen by previous PACE audiences.
Pre-registration is required, as space is limited to the first 300 registrants. The event is hosted through Zoom, and attendees are asked to log in five minutes prior to the start.
Register at www.pacetalks.com, where you will also find recordings from many of the previous seasons' talks prepared by student partners from Loyalist College.
