Letter from the editor

On Saturday I published an article titled, “Mikael Tam: Brain dead or just French?” In the satirical news story, I poked fun at Tam’s heavy Quebecois accent and poor English speaking skills. Here’s a passage:

“In the clip below, Tam appears to be speaking very slowly and at one point actually uses the word “incredeebable,” but no definitive conclusions can be drawn so far, says Dr. Karen Johnston, a neurosurgeon and the director of the Sports Concussion Clinic at Toronto Rehab.

“While the boy certainly looks to have suffered major brain damage, the way he speaks may just be a result of living in Quebec,” says Johnston. “This might take several weeks to figure out.”

While I figured the story might get me in trouble with Francophones, I never thought twice about using the name of a real doctor in the piece. Big mistake. As you can see, Dr. Karen Johnston’s people were none too pleased about this:

“As the media relations specialist at Toronto Rehab I feel it’s important that your followers know that Dr. Karen Johnston did not comment on this story and would never say anything inappropriate and disrespectful like this. Dr. Johnston has a very strict policy of not commenting on high profile athlete injuries in order to ensure the privacy of the individual and not feed into any unethical public prognosis of the person’s medical condition.

I would ask you to remove Dr. Johnston’s name from it.” – Carolyn Lovas, media relations specialist.

(Carolyn’s complaint can also be viewed in the comments section on the right of the page.)

After receiving Carolyn’s note, my first thought was, “Yes, an angry response, this website’s finally taking off!” Then I realized the sad truth. No one reads this. Carolyn must have some kind of alert set up that informs her when Dr. Johnston or the names of any other employees of the Sports Concussion Clinic at Toronto Rehab pop up on the Internet. Which, to me, makes the Tam article at least ten times funnier. Imagine poor Carolyn, dragging herself into the office Monday morning, pouring herself a cup of coffee, browsing through her e-mail when, boom, she notices that Karen’s been quoted on The Steve Network.

“Hmm, I never heard of The Steve Network,” Carolyn thinks to herself. “Maybe Jackie set that up interview up.” Carolyn then reads the story, sees the quote, “While the boy certainly looks to have suffered major brain damage, the way he speaks may just be a result of living in Quebec” has been attributed to Johnston, then what? Does a comical spit-take, projecting hot coffee all over her desk? Reading that would have to catch you by surprise.

(Wait a second, if Carolyn receives alerts whenever Dr. Karen Johnston’s name is mentioned, that means she’s probably reading this article right now. Which means I’ve now wasted her time two days in a row. Sorry Carolyn.)

Anyway, shortly after receiving Carolyn’s note, I immediately switched the name in the piece to the fictional Dr. Susan Stoebel. After all, I’m nothing if not a coward. I’m also not trying to hurt anyone’s career here. Especially someone as lovely as Dr. Karen Johnston. Just look at her. Busy at work analyzing brain scans, but not too busy to show the camera some love. Plus, she’s got serious credentials. Dr. Johnston’s the concussion point person to organizations including the International Olympic Committee, Fédération Internationale de Football Association, National Hockey League, NHL Players Association and the CFL. After the Montreal Alouettes won the Grey Cup in 2002, they even presented her with a personalized championship ring. Not bad.

So, I’m using this space to sincerely apologize. In order to avoid flooding Carolyn Lovas’ e-mail box with new alerts in the future, I will now use fake names in place of Karen or any other employees of the Sports Concussion Clinic at Toronto Rehab.  These people I will never mention include:

Board of Directors

David Bragg (Chair)

Richard Abboud

Susan Armstrong

Dr. Raymond Berry

Timothy W. Casgrain

Dean A. Connor

Mary Ann Curran

Arthur James

P. Bradley Limpert

Dr. Colleen McGillivray

Ram Ramkumar

Mark Rochon

Connie Roveto

John Shepherd

Dr. Catharine Whiteside

Sandy Wise

Kevin Young

Senior management:

President & CEO	Mark Rochon
President, Toronto Rehab Foundation	Sheila Hicks
Vice President, Marketing and Communications	Jennifer Ferguson
Vice President, Research	Dr. Geoff Fernie
Vice President, Human Resources and Support Services	Donna Marafioti
Vice President, Finance and Planning	Sue Mikulicic
Vice President, Patient Care & Chief Nursing Exectuve	Dr. Karima Velji
Vice President, Patient Care & Chief Medical Officer	Dr. Gaetan Tardif
CIO	Lydia Lee