As a professor who insisted on placing the notion of personhood at the centre of the clinician-patient relationship in the medical school curriculum, Dr. Abraham (Abe) Fuks made an impact on generations of health professionals in his hometown and beyond.
More than half a century after earning his own degree from McGill University—where he ultimately served as the medicine faculty dean from 1995 to 2006—Fuks died in Montreal on Dec. 1, at age 78.
A leading researcher in immunology, Fuks also made great and enduring contributions to the understanding of tumour biology, type 1 diabetes, and clinical trial ethics. His work shaped the evolution of medical education in Canada, beginning with McGill’s medical curriculum, notably introducing the Physicianship component, whose courses and modules emphasized humanism in medical training.
Teaching, he argued, should not just look at fixing and curing, but also true healing and empathy.
After conducting biochemistry and molecular biology research at Harvard University—where he also lectured in 2007 and 2008—Fuks returned to McGill to serve as a professor in Medicine, Oncology and Pathology.
Beforehand, he was instrumental in reshaping the medical school’s infrastructure by organizing the 1997 merger of the Montreal General, Royal Victoria and Montreal Children’s hospitals—along with the Chest and Neurological institutes—to create the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC).
Despite this era of austerity and repeated punishing budgetary constraints during his tenure, Fuks still managed to endow chairs and boost faculty numbers while expanding the biomedical research facilities at McGill.
Lending his talent to numerous committees and initiatives, he was affectionately dubbed the “philosopher dean” for his renowned humanistic approach to patient care and generous demeanour, which was reflected in the pages of his 2021 book, The Language of Medicine.
Fuks’ prescription of listening as an obligatory skill set for doctors-in-training amid a modern teaching-hospital environment that is increasingly a place of short-term admissions, gauged and rewarded for even shorter stays.
The slew of professional and personal kudos he received from peers were capped with being awarded the Order of Canada in 2018. But according to one friend of 50 years, Fuks still kept the important things sacred.
“Yiddishkeit and friendship, friendship, friendship,” were his priorities according to former city councillor Abe Gushonor. “With all the people he knew, all that he was involved in, he believed in the importance of staying close.”
The two met through the Yiddish Theatre when “we were much, much younger,” laughed Gonshor, “back when Dora Wasserman first set out to create this theatre that created unchanged friendships that lasted forever.”
Fuks was one of the pillars of the group, performing in many productions with his younger sister, Sylvia.
In recent years, Fuks remained a committed mentor, seen regularly on campus, ready to chat with students or faculty, lend an ear or a dose of wisdom when needed—always with a smile, sharply dressed, sporting his signature bow ties.
Along with a few other McGillians of his era (including Rod Macdonald and Alex Paterson), he also knew how to really rock a bow tie pic.twitter.com/UBaExBX84t
— McGill News Magazine (@McGillNewsMag) December 1, 2024
Those who had “the privilege of his collegiality or friendship were fortunate to share time and experience with a special human being,” wrote Myer Bick, president emeritus of the Jewish General Hospital Foundation.
“His character encompassed the rare combination of qualities of a brilliant mind, understanding of the human condition, humility and of course a sharp wit.”
A few years after he helped launch the White Coat Ceremony for medical students, Fuks was honoured by the Douglas Research Centre, telling an audience a highlight of his leadership was working with successful young people, which he likened to “academic parenthood.”
“He was the most incredible listener and had the unbelievable power of information retention,” Gonshor recalled. “He would remember things I told him 40 years ago in great detail, and because he listened so well, he gave the best advice. Any person that ever interacted with him, notice that he was focused on that person, and very humble and compassionate.
“He never boasted about his achievements and with all the things he did and all the things he’s accomplished, it was never about him. It was always about the people around him.”
Fuks also had a keen understanding and passion for relations between institutions, donors, and wider communities, and helped sound the alarm about Quebec City’s recent large-scale Bill 15 health reform, which would dramatically alter institutional governance imposing a new level of remote bureaucracy over local leadership.
A year before his death, in his poignant but folksy critique, Fuks told a Montreal audience of healthcare professionals, advocates and politicians that hospitals and other establishments are not bureaucratic agencies but rather “social-cultural entities of communities.”
Rather than talk about organizational charts, he helped direct Quebecers’ attention to the perils of losing local voices on boards, whom he called the “glue between institution and professionals, between hospitals and communities they serve.”
That’s where he said change happened—where spikes in conditions amid local populations are discussed, bold initiatives conceived, and members dispatched to seek donor support, rather than by far-away life-tenured bureaucrats.
“Giving ultimate authority over healthcare to someone with zero frontline knowledge,” he famously warned, “is like asking me to run the Bank of Canada.”
Expressing his own admiration for his peers, in 2023 he created an Academy of Exemplary Physicians along with a video interview series with each to honour their contributions.
New video series: Academy of Exemplary Physicians laureates ~ Don’t miss our series of one-on-one interviews – conducted by the late Abraham Fuks – with the first cohort of laureates, including Hélène Rousseau (pictured above with Dr. Fuks). https://t.co/sOta8Gq1zC pic.twitter.com/pnpffyfyLw
— McGill Medicine and Health Sciences (@McGillMed) December 28, 2024
Born at a displaced persons camp in Hofgeismar in Germany on Oct. 28, 1946, and brought to Canada at age two, he grew up in a Parc Avenue triplex above his parents’ store.
Edna Mendelson, an extended cousin—and also a child of a survivor—recalls him as a “legend” for providing support to her family when they arrived in Montreal in the late 1960s.
“The family bond and the deep Holocaust survivors’ bond was thick and unshakeable,” she said.
It was 25 years ago that Abe Gonshor lost his 24-year-old daughter Sarah to a very rare form of cancer, and his friend Abe was very moved by her experience and suffering through pain during diagnostic tests.
“For years afterward he carried a letter Sarah wrote about what she felt doctors should know, something that inspired Abe to stress that importance to medical students before they became doctors, learning how to listen, how to speak.”
But mostly Gonshor remembers simple times together, as they met for Shabbat dinners and morning coffees, along with regular Sunday breakfasts in the west end of Montreal.
“With all the things he was doing—teaching, schools, hospitals, foundations, committees and philanthropy—he found time to be with his friends. He always was with us. How much we’ll miss him, and how much the world will.
“There’s such an impact. I don’t know if words can explain it.”
