Dr. Michael Bouhadana is a graduate of McGill University (MDCM '95) and a certified Family Medicine and palliative care specialist from the Canadian College of Family Physicians (CCFP(PC)) after completing his residency and an enhanced skills fellowship in Palliative Care from McGill in 1998. Since then, he is part of the faculty at McGill's Department of Family Medicine for the training of medical students and residents, and practices as a staff physician at the Jewish General Hospital's Herzl Family Practice Center, one of McGill's largest family medicine academic centres. He also is a pain and symptom control consultant for the palliative care service of the JGH's Segal Cancer Center. His domains of expertise include symptom control in gynecological and general oncology, chronic non-malignant pain and palliative home care. In addition to the care provided in the outpatient setting, Dr. Bouhadana is Herzl's Director of the Family Medicine Inpatient Service, which includes the clinical teaching unit for the training of residents and fellows in hospitalist medicine.
It is his work in palliative care combined with his strong sense of community and religious background that led him to pursue studies in Jewish medical ethics and medical halacha, allowing him to also meet the growing care needs of Montreal's impressive Orthodox Jewish community in the areas of pain and oncological follow-up. In 2006, he joined the hospital's clinical ethics committee as end-of-life expert and Jewish medical ethics advisor, and frequently consults with local rabbis and halachic authorities outside the hospital to help resolve ethical issues in this clinical setting. Later in 2010, he accepted the position of Medical Director of Refouah V'Chesed, a volunteer organization now renamed the Montreal Centre for Health and Care and providing visitations, home care and facilitating access to medical services to the wider Jewish community of Montreal. His interest in Jewish medical ethics focuses on care provision and decision making at the end of life, and he has on multiple occasions been an invited speaker on the topic in various medical as well as public Jewish community events, including the JGH's Annual JME Symposium between 2010 and 2015.