Deborah Edberg MD

This post is from Jonathan Fischer MD on FB. Please read it. Thank you. I am a Jewish physician, and I have never written about that here. I am going to, because of a surgeon I have never met. Emmanuel Moss, chief of cardiac surgery at Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital, is leaving for Atlanta in September. He is one of the few surgeons in Canada routinely performing robotic mitral valve and coronary bypass procedures. People close to him say the deciding factor was not Quebec’s strained healthcare system, which had been strained for years, but a growing sense that he was no longer safe in the city as a Jew. The hospital he is leaving opened in 1934 with the first official nondiscrimination policy of any hospital in Canada. It was founded in response to an era when many Jewish physicians faced discrimination in medical training and hospital appointments. The historical echo is difficult to miss. When a clinician leaves because of who they are, a health system does not lose a statistic. It loses a specific person who held specific knowledge, relationships, judgment, and expertise developed over decades. A 2024 survey of Canadian Jewish physicians found that reported antisemitism in hospitals rose from near zero before October 2023 to 39 percent after, and that nearly a third of respondents were considering leaving the country. The association’s chair warned that the consequences could include the loss of hundreds of physicians at a time when the healthcare system can least afford it. That mechanism is not unique to Jews. It is what happens whenever people feel unsafe because of their identity. Experts leave. Communities become poorer in ways that are difficult to measure. Eventually, patients and their families pay the price. I am writing this as a Jewish physician because this story landed personally. I am writing it as a physician leader because I have spent decades thinking about what allows caring people to do their best work, and what it costs when they cannot. When any clinician feels unsafe because of who they are, something is lost long before they decide to leave. This time, the story touched my own community. That does not make it less relevant to anyone else. It does make it harder for me to stay silent. Photo: Institut de cardiologie de Montréal. Reporting: The Montreal Gazette.