Dr. Mara Mills
March 18, 2025, 7 pm
Alumni Hall, Academic Building, University of King's College
Music is woven into every stage of life, from the lullabies that calm infants to the songs that stir our deepest memories. In this presentation, Dr. Stewart will explain how music engages the brain—activating networks for emotion, memory, movement, and reward. Drawing on neuroscience and lived experience, she will take you on an experiential journey from early development through adulthood and aging, showing how music enhances learning, fosters social connection, and promotes healing and wellness. Participants will leave with a deeper appreciation for the ways in which music not only reflects the human experience but helps shape and sustain it.
Dr. Wendy Stewart is a paediatric neurologist and medical educator whose work centers on the health humanities, especially the transformative role of music and visual art in care, learning and wellbeing. As Assistant Dean Preclerkship, Director of Faculty Development and Director of Humanities at Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick, she integrates arts-based methods into curricula, leading initiatives that use music and visual arts to strengthen clinical reasoning, teamwork and professional identity. Her scholarly work focuses on the use of the arts to promote health and well-being and advance humanities-informed education and equity. She is classically trained in accordion and can personally attest to the power of music in her own life. She is passionate about teaching and has been recognized with multiple teaching honours—including the DMNB Silver Shovel and Best in Class awards.
The Dr. Saul Green Memorial Lecture is presented by the University of King’s College in partnership with the Shaar Shalom Synagogue. The lecture is free and open to the public. It will be followed by a short question and answer period.
The Saul Green Memorial Lecture can address the intersection of Judaism, medicine or humanitarianism, all three of which Dr. Green was passionate about in his lifetime. It focuses on complex humanistic and ethical challenges.
Lecturership partners are Shaar Shalom Synagogue and the University of King's College. The Shaar Shalom Congregation is committed to learning, fellowship and community.
The lectureship has been endowed by a gift from the Green family to honour the memory of Dr. Saul Green and to inspire and knit together the congregation and the community of Halifax.
The University of King's College is Canada's oldest chartered university. A small and extraordinarily lively academic community, King's is known nationally and internationally for its highly acclaimed interdisciplinary programs in the humanities and journalism.
To his loyal patients, he was simply known as Dr. Saul, or in many cases, Saulie. He was a dedicated practioner of medicine and surgery in Halifax for 50 years. Saul was a person of grace, compassion, integrity and good humour.
He was born in 1921 in Glace Bay to Russian-born immigrants. Saul graduated from Dalhousie University Medical School in 1945 after which he did a residency in general surgery. A fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada as well as the American College of Surgeons, he was also a founding member of Shaar Shalom and a loyal citizen of Halifax, where he lived until he passed away in 2005.
Dr. Mara Mills
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Dr. Abraham (Rami) Rudnick
"Imagining Better Health Care: Can Counterfactual ("What if...") Learning by Analogy from the Bible Help?"
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