It was an absolute blast to be a part of survivorship day at ELLICSR http://www.ellicsr.ca/ . ELLICSR is a tremendous place at Toronto General Hospital where people going through cancer and their families can come for support and education. On Monday, we had our biggest event of the year. We honoured the memory of Dr. Robert Buckman who did so much tremendous work in helping found the centre, and happened to work with Monty Python. (This impresses the crap out of me). He did great stuff on health with Terry Jones that is available on The YouTUBE… here.
I was absolutely thrilled to be part of a panel with Dr. Brian Goldman, Dietitian Christy Brissette, Laura Adams of the Rhode Island Quality Institute and Dr. Alex Jadad who just generally rocks. There were well over 100 people there all sharing stories about what it was like to go through cancer and helping each other by sharing resources to help make the journey easier. It was a very inspiring day with cooking demonstrations by Chef Jeremy Capone, art demonstrations by folks from Art4Cancer and I was thrilled to be able to present my workshop Laughing In The Face Of Cancer.
It was remarkable to meet so many amazing, generous and positive folks.
There are awesome fun pictures somewhere on a disk. When I get them, I’ll pass them along. Hope all is good with all of you.
I was very fortunate over the weekend to meet some wonderful people at Thyroid Cancer Canada. There were well over 100 people at the conference here in Toronto. I was absently honored to perform Laughing In The Face Of Cancer for them. It was an absolute blast. Rita Banach was honored for her incredible work in being instrumental in creating the organization that has helped so many people in the last few years.
It’s always amazing to me and so much fun to be able to lighten the mood of the room and to help people laugh about something that concerns them so much. As always, performing in the morning is a blast because I get to drink too much coffee and eat too many danishes so I can burn it off during the rest of the day.
It was really nice that Rita gave me this quote,
“How delightful to push back at thyroid cancer through the bright wit of Rob Hawke. The light-hearted humour of Norm vs Cancer engages us in the twists & turns of a comedic mind using body imagery to literally send us on a new kind of cancer journey.”
Rita Banach, President, Thyroid Cancer Canada
My very good pal and a creative force in his own right, Mr. Gord Oxley is coming over today to show me some new fancy digital visual effects that I’m going to be able to use during live performances. Hopefully we’ll be able to project images to create more of a theatrical atmosphere in places like conference rooms. This is really exciting because it would allow presentations to be much more theatrical in nature and even more audience friendly. Hopefully this will work out. I’ll let you know how it goes. Wherever you are, and whatever your story is, I hope you’re having a great day.
Adventures in Patient Centered Care is my latest presentation for healthcare. It is a humorous, educational and informative talk that bridges the gap between comedic performance and healthcare education. In this presentation I bring to light my experiences as a cancer survivor and talk about what it was like to go through the healthcare system.
Through personal anecdotes from a layman’s perspective I talk about what Patient Centered Care meant to me while I was a patient and how deeply it affected my day-to-day experience while I was going through cancer treatment and how some of the interactions I had with healthcare professionals affect me to this day.
I’m a huge fan of Patient Centered Care and everything that it stands for. I also am a big fan of healthcare professionals who work so hard to treat people as well as they can every day. I am also aware that there are many opportunities to give better care. Adventures In Patient Centered Care has been performed for physicians, nurses, Allied health, nursing students and medical students in universities, colleges, healthcare conferences and hospitals. it has been remarkably well-received and leaves participants feeling good about their work and if I may say a bit inspired. It is an absolute pleasure to perform this piece, if you are interested in hearing more about Adventures In Patient Centered Care I would be thrilled to connect with you on it.
Here is a quote from a recent performance…
“Your voice and vulnerability brought to life the voices and experiences of the many people we all lay hands on every day. Your work stayed with us and set the stage for many important ‘ah ha’ moments when many realized their actions and words make a significant and long lasting difference. Keep up your wonderful work! Using the arts as a vehicle for illuminating the patient’s voice will change health care for the better. Thank you again!!”
Joy Richards, RN,PhD, Vice-President Health Professions & CNE University Health Network
Wherever you are and whatever your story is, I hope you’re having a great day. Rob
I was remarkably fortunate to perform for and meet some remarkable people in the last while. The University Health Network Nursing Forum was kind enough to ask me to be a keynote speaker twice. I must admit that as an actor having the chance to reform is always a pleasure, hitting the stage at 8:15 AM two days in a row is a bit of a challenge and involves, for me at least, a good dose of caffeine. My talk Adventures In Patient Centred Care, was very well received and I got to meet some remarkable nurses who shared their stories with me. My sincere thanks to Carolyn McPhee, Joy Richards, Nadine Cross and everyone at UHN Nursing.
The mighty Gord Oxley accompanied me during the second performance and provided some awesome technical support.
Humber River Regional Hospital had invited me to perform for nurses week as well and I was thrilled to get the chance to follow Joy Richards on stage. In addition to Adventures in Patient Centered Care, I also performed selections from NormVsCancer. It was an absolute blast to perform NormVsCancer again. There were 200 very enthusiastic and generous people in the audience. Once again I was blown away by the honesty, integrity and positive energy of the folks I was presenting to. Medical professionals shared their personal stories with me afterwards, not just as folks working in healthcare, but as people who are patients with our own struggles, challenges and victories. It was remarkably moving to be a part of it.
Wherever you are and whatever your story is, I wish you the best.
Hey Everyone! So glad to do a signing at Mount Sinai today. It was a blast to meet olks and sign some books. Funny it was almost 6 years ago to do the day that I had surgery in this hospital. Funny how life works. Hope your day is awesome.
