Hilary B. Kern, M.D.

06/13/2026

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.

06/08/2026

Big fan of doing it yourself!
NYC is an amazing walkable city which is so helpful!!❤️💪😎💃🎶🏃🏻‍♀️🤩

Modern life taught us to think of movement as something separate from life.

A workout you schedule.

A class you sign up for.

A step goal you try to hit after the rest of the day has already drained you.

But in the places where people live the longest, movement is rarely treated like a task on a calendar.

It is built into the day itself.

The garden needs tending.
The meal needs preparing.
The neighbor is close enough to visit on foot.
The floor, the stairs, the hillside, the market, the kitchen, and the home all keep the body involved.

This is one of the quiet lessons of Blue Zones.

The world’s longest-living people are not necessarily spending their lives in gyms.

They are living in environments where movement never fully disappeared.

Modern life did the opposite.

It engineered movement out of the day, then told us to fix the problem with 30 minutes of exercise.

You can drive to work, sit through most of the day, sit through meals, sit to answer messages, then sit down at night and call it recovery.

And sometimes, real rest is exactly what you need.

But when sitting becomes the posture of your whole life, more sitting is not always the kind of recovery your body is asking for.

Sometimes your body is asking for circulation.

For sunlight.

For your hips to open.

For your legs to work.

For your muscles to remember they are still needed.

Your biology was not designed for a life where movement became the exception.

It was designed for steady, natural use throughout the day.

The kind that helps support blood sugar after meals.

The kind that keeps joints from stiffening into disuse.

The kind that helps preserve balance, strength, posture, independence, and confidence as you age.

This is why the Blue Zones lesson matters so much.

It does not shame you for missing a workout.

It reminds you that aging well is also shaped by the small physical demands your day still asks of you.

Carrying something.

Walking somewhere.

Reaching, bending, sweeping, gardening, climbing, cooking, standing, stretching, getting up and down.

Not as punishment.

Not as calorie-burning.

Not as another thing to perfect.

As a way of staying in relationship with the body you still live inside.

Because the question is not only:

“Did I exercise today?”

It is also:

“Did my body get to participate in my life today?”

That may be one reason the world’s longest-living cultures age so differently.

They do not move because they are chasing fitness.

They move because life never stopped requiring it.

Follow along for more practical, natural steps to slow biological aging and live a longer, fuller life.

06/02/2026

Breakthroughs for pancreatic cancer & melanoma…Good News!!

A new treatment strategy for melanoma patients cuts the risk of the skin cancer recurring within five years nearly in half, researchers at New York’s NYU Langone Perlmutter Cancer Center said Monday

06/01/2026

From historic lodges to sprawling ranch resorts, these stunning spots are worth planning your next trip around.

05/30/2026

For quiet coastal paradises, contemporary design cities, and new ways to travel far, far away.