Vincent Lam – A Fast & Incomplete History of Medicine

Vincent Lam is an emergency physician and award-winning author of Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures. His hope for health is that people will engage with health care as the story that it is.

Vincent was one of eight speakers — representing both health care and the public — to use the exciting Pecha Kucha presentation format to answer our question: What are your hopes for health care?

Dr. Vincent Lam is from the expatriate Chinese community of Vietnam and was born in Canada. Dr. Lam did his medical training in Toronto, and is an emergency physician in Toronto. He is a Lecturer with the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. He has also worked in international air evacuation and expedition medicine on Arctic and Antarctic ships.

Dr. Lam’s first book, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, won the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and has recently been adapted for television and broadcast on HBO Canada. Dr. Lam co-authored The Flu Pandemic and You, a non-fiction guide to influenza pandemics. The Headmaster’s Wager, Dr. Lam’s first novel, about a Chinese compulsive gambler and headmaster of an English school in Saigon during the Vietnam War, is published by Doubleday Canada. Dr. Lam’s biography of Tommy Douglas is published by Penguin Canada as part of the Extraordinary Canadians series.

Health Talks was emceed by Gavin Stuart, Dean, Faculty of Medicine and Vice Provost, Health, at the University of British Columbia.