Features
Ian Shaffer: set the template for medical management
By GERRY POSNER I ask myself every time I come across yet another Jewish psychiatrist from Winnipeg. Did Winnipeg have a factory that produced Jewish shrinks? Recently I came across yet another name of yet another very accomplished psychiatrist with Winnipeg roots: Ian Shaffer, a former River Heights resident.
Ian and his brother Marvin were the sons of the late Saul and Molly Shaffer. From his beginnings on Queenston Street, Ian has ended up with two residences – one in New York City and the other in Fort Myers, Florida – but with a few stops along the way.
It all began in Winnipeg when Ian graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1968 with a medical degree in psychiatry. Today, in addition to the MD following his name, Shaffer also has an MMM (Masters of Medical Management), CPE (Certified Physician Executive), and LFAPA (Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association). Recite that a hundred times and you still might not get it right.
Shaffer’s career as a psychiatrist didn’t follow the the traditional path of most graduates. Although he did maintain a practice in Child, Adolescent and Adult Psychiatry, focusing on assessment, planning and pharmacotherapy for a period of his career, he veered into what might be called a more managerial mode of medicine. Keep in mind that his work has encompassed medical licenses in four differerent jurisdictions: California, Virginia, New York, and Florida. As well, Ian is board certified with the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, the American Society of Addiction Medicine, the American Board of Quality Assurance Utilization Review Physicians, (a mouthful at any time of the day), and the American Board of Medical Management.
In 1973 when Shaffer was in private practice in both San Marino and Encino, California. Between 1973-1989 he worked as a practicing psychiatrist. Around 1989, he became affiliated with a group called the Western Health Associated Medical Group in Los Angeles. It was there his career took a different route as he became not only a medical practitioner but, in addition, one of two managing partners in a large psychiatric group that directed care programs providing mental health care to over 70,000 people. That seemed to launch Ian into the role of management in different capacities.
In 1991, he and his wife (the former Reeva Wolk of Winnipeg) moved to the Metro Washington, D.C. area, where Ian assumed the position of Vice President, Medical Affairs/Chief Medical Officer, providing oversight of clinical care management for over 37 million people. He had to manage 30 physicians and other management personnel. I suggest that you have to be able to handle people well in a position like that and clearly, Ian Shaffer had that skill set.
From that time forward, Ian has been involved in significant management and consulting roles for various health care systems. In 2011, right up to the present, among his many responsibilities, Ian was the principal consultant to Behavioral Health Management Solutions – PLLC. Even before establishing himself in that role, as Vice President and Executive Medical Director – the go-to guy responsible for behavioral health program management, he had been actively involved in working on behavioral health issues confronting military and veteran populations, also their families.
Shaffer’s career has also included working closely with several Fortune 100 companies, including IBM, General Motors, Chrysler, Shell Oil, Chevron, and others. On three occasions, he served as chairman of the Association of Behavioral Health and Wellness (ABHW for those familiar with the acronym). He also served on several federal government committees, including a three-year term on the National Advisory Committee for the Center for Mental Health Services. To put it succinctly, Ian has been around the block in terms of his working with large companies and, moreover with government at many levels. He has focussed on redesigning health programmes regarding the delivery of those programmes, also reimbursement for those programmes. What does that mean?
What it means for Ian Shaffer is that he is responsible for the development of various behavioral health programmes to meet New York State requirements for health benefits for indivdiuals with serious mental illness and substance use disorders. That includes large numbers of people with persistent and significant general mental illness. What strikes me immediately is that even though Ian is retired now, living in New York City and Florida, he has still been a regular part of a team assisting the Government of New York State with the purpose of trying to improve the care for residents of the state who suffer from mental illness and substance use disorders. This particular appointment was from the New York senate, no less. I say those are lofty heights for a kid from River Heights in Winnipeg once a long time ago.
Clearly, one of Shaffer’s greatest assets – and a reason why he has been and still is in demand throughout his career, is that he epitomizes what it means to be a strategic thinker, not simply an operator. He sees the big picture and then hires the people to implement his vision. He is also quick to acknowledge the benefits of his growing up in Winnipeg – where he learned to form bonds, relationships, and the importance of commitment and following through with your commitment.
Ian puts it this way: “ Reeva and I lived in Los Angeles for twenty-three years where relationships are a mile wide and an inch deep, but in Winnipeg, my relationships were an inch wide and and a mile deep. “ He also credits the excellent training he received at the Manitoba Medical School (and later at the LA County University of Southern California Medical Centre.)
Reeva and Ian do leave Fort Myers, Florida to get back to Winnipeg (not likely in the winter) for important occasions, such as his medical school reunions. They are the parents of four children, ten grandchildren and , get this – eight great grandchildren. His story is one I hope his grandkids learn and appreciate as it reflects a remarkably satisfying career where Ian Shaffer made a difference to so many others.
Features
The Clash of Civilizations Continues, Like it or Not
By HENRY SREBRNIK I’m not being faux humble when I say I consider Niall Ferguson more erudite and better read than I am. He has taught at Oxford and New York University. As for impact? He reaches millions of people. Me? Probably thousands – I hope.
But in a Sept. 11, 2025, article, “Osama bin Laden’s Posthumous Victory,” published in the Free Press of New York, on the anniversary of 9/11, Ferguson admitted that it took him almost 25 years to finally agree that the late Harvard professor Samuel Huntington’s seminal 1993 masterpiece “The Clash of Civilizations” was indeed the correct way to understand our modern world. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
I, on the other hand, already agreed with this view — in fact, this was the case even before I read Huntington. I guess it comes down to perspective and “lived experience,” which can trump even sheer intelligence.
Ferguson writes: “Over the past 24 years, I have valiantly tried to see 9/11 differently — not as a civilizational clash between Islam and ‘the West’ but as something that fit better into my own secular frame of reference. Raised an atheist, trained as an economic historian, I felt obliged to look behind what I took to be the facade of religious zealotry.” He goes on: “On reflection, I see that I was overthinking the event. Or perhaps under-thinking it.”
What did Huntington posit, in a nutshell? He suggested that “the fundamental source of conflict” in the world after the Cold War would be “cultural,” and “the principal conflicts of global politics” would be “between nations and groups of different civilizations.” He provided a number of these civilizations: Western, by which he meant Western European Christian and its settler offshoots; East Asian Confucian; Japanese; Islamic; Hindu; Slavic-Orthodox; Latin American; and African. (Some of these categories were admittedly rather vague.)
Some countries, he contended, had severe internal cultural divisions within them, leading to civil conflict. Lebanon, Sri Lanka, and Yugoslavia, which all dissolved in civil wars, were obvious examples. But Huntington in particular predicted that the “centuries-old military interaction between the West and Islam” would become “more virulent,” since Islam and Western civilization were, in his view, fundamentally incompatible.
Huntington didn’t, for whatever reason, divide Islam into Sunni and Shia branches, considering this is an internal quarrel, unlike his separation of the Christian divisions (Catholic-Protestant, Slavic-Orthodox, and a syncretic Latin American). The “African” civilizational category encompassed everything south of the Islamic north African, east African, and Sahel regions of the continent, and seemed to reflect its myriad indigenous religions. And yes, in his conception, Israel stood alone. In his perspective, Israel was not just a country in dispute but the frontline of a centuries-old religious war.
There were several adjustments over the years, as a reader will notice when looking at the various world maps illustrating his theory on the internet.
Huntington also foresaw a “Confucian-Islamic military connection” that would culminate in a conflict between “The West and the Rest.” I however see any such alliance as pure pragmatism and one that wouldn’t last, were the “West” to be defeated. There are no cultural affinities between the Muslim world, on the one hand, and the east and southeast Asian Confucian and Buddhist civilizations on the other. They too would eventually come into conflict.
Amongst the younger generation of “proto-woke Ivy League professors,” Huntington was widely mocked for his “essentialism,” Ferguson notes. But consider, with Huntington’s argument in mind, all that has happened since September 9, 2001.
The Hamas attack on Israel two years ago was essentially an Israeli 9/11. At the same time, Western civilization today is much more divided than it was 24 years ago. The public response to the Gaza War has illuminated these. Whereas older people generally remain more pro-Israeli than pro-Palestinian, younger ones have swung the other way.
According to an August 6 study by the Brookings Institute, support for Israel in the United States continues to deteriorate, especially among young people. Among Democrats, there has been an increase of 62 per cent to 71 percent with an unfavourable view of Israel in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic. Only nine per cent of those aged 18 to 34 approve of Israel’s military actions in Gaza. Even young Republicans aged 18-49 have shifted from 35 per cent having an unfavourable view of Israel to 50 per cent unfavourable.
In Britain, the Campaign Against Antisemitism surveyed British adults’ attitudes towards Jews. The findings show that antisemitism has risen to the highest levels on record since they began these. Once again, the swing towards antisemitism is more pronounced amongst the young: 45 per cent of the British public believes that Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews, and 60 per cent of young people believe this. Only 31 per cent of young voters agree that Israel has a right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people, while 26 per cent of the British public believes that Israel can get away with anything because its supporters control the media. As well, 19 per cent of young people believe that the Hamas attack on Israel was justified.
Huntington, and now Ferguson, would tell you this: the “West” is now unsure of itself and is in ideological disarray. If 9/11 didn’t convince you of that, maybe 10/7 will.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Features
New movie, “Bau, Artist at War,” scheduled to open in Winnipeg on Sept. 26, tells the amazing story of Joseph Bau, whose marriage to his wife Rebecca was made famous in “Schindler’s List”
“They can starve us, beat us, cage us – but they could never kill our spirit.“ – Joseph Bau
A gripping new movie, titled Bau, Artist at War, scheduled to open in Winnipeg on Sept. 26 at the Grant Park Landmark Theatre, tells the story of Joseph Bau, whose dramatization of his marriage in Plaszow concentration camp to his wife Rebecca was an unforgettable scene in the movie Schindler’s List.
The film is based in large part on Bau’s memoir, Dear God, Have You Ever Gone Hungry? (published in 1998). The film was written by Deborah Smerecnik, Ron Bass, and Sonia Kifferstein, and is directed by Sean McNamara.
Featuring stellar performances by Emile Hirsche (who appeared in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) as the protagonist, and Inbar Lavi (who appeared in the Israeli television series Fauda and the U.S. television series Imposters) as Rebecca, the movie is a combination love story and espionage tale that deserves attention in an era, as one commentator has said, “where survivors are fading away, and the Holocaust is slipping from memory.” It’s also a story about resistance during the Holocaust.
In the movie, during his time in Plaszow Concentration Camp, Bau is a Jewish forger, an artist and a designer. He is employed by the brutal commandant Josef Liepold to draw a newly planned wing in the prison. He is simultaneously forging IDs for Jewish inmates helping them escape the prison. Hirsche as Bau, also draws comics for the prisoners, and his gift of art inspires his future wife with his colorful “lifegiving” creations, to which she responds in the gloomy setting of the death camp. McNamara cleverly intercuts these wonderful artworks within the film’s action.
Joseph Bau was a man who defied the darkness of the Holocaust with art, humor, and an unbreakable spirit. A gifted artist and master forger, Bau risked his life to save others, using his talent to create false documents that helped fellow prisoners escape certain death. But in the depths of despair, he discovered something even more powerful…love.
In the Plaszow concentration camp, amid relentless brutality, Joseph met Rebecca – a woman whose courage matched his own.
Years later, when Joseph is called to testify against the sadistic Nazi officer who tormented him, he is forced to relive the horrors of his past. But through it all, he draws strength from the love that saved him, the art that sustained him, and the unyielding will that kept him alive.
A gripping war drama, a daring espionage thriller, and one of the greatest love stories of our time, Bau, Artist at War is a testament to the power of resilience, the triumph of the human spirit, and the unbreakable bonds that even war could not destroy.
Features
Is Hamas a “treatable” cancer?
By GREGORY MASON If we define Hamas as a cancer, can we devise a strategy to, if not defeat Hamas, at least manage it? Is Hamas “treatable?”
Defining treatable cancer
Although the cancer charities like to promote the notion that we are winning the war against cancer, a reference that confirms the suitability of conjoining cancer and Hamas, the reality is that five-year survival rates are increasing only slowly. While curative therapies continue to improve, early detection —encompassing both greater testing participation and technological advancements in testing —appears to be the most crucial factor in lengthened survivability.
The key treatment condition is the stage at which cancer becomes known. The typical staging has four levels, where the tumour:
- remains entirely within the margins (edges) of the organ
- reaches the margins.
- moves beyond the margin and invades the surrounding tissues.
- move another organ or system.
Sometimes oncologists refer to precancerous growths as “stage 0” when a surgeon removes a skin lesion as a precaution. Progression among the cancer stages is known as metastasis.
Most important is to understand that the five-year survival standard includes no reference to quality of life. Most cancer treatments compromise quality of life.
Patients often assume the word “cancer” means a death sentence. Yet if detected early, the idea of “treatable cancer” invariably creates a sense of optimism since it also implies a course of action leading to a “cure.” Most oncologists are wary of raising false expectations when discussing the nature of a patient’s condition and the options for treatment.
Three conditions mark a treatable cancer. - Treatment options exist.
- Actions are feasible – the patient resides where the technology, talent, and treatments (medications) are available.
- Patients receive no guarantees that exist for a cure (complete remission), extension of life, or improved quality of life.
Treatment outcomes for cancer exist in several dimensions: the extension of life, the quality of that life, and the difficulty of the treatment. Patients and physicians face complex trade-offs, where the difficulty of the treatment versus the expected gain in quality of life may induce the patient to curtail active treatment. The patient submits to the inevitable and enters palliative care.
Setting aside voodoo, cancer treatments include surgery that targets specific tumour sites, chemotherapy that uses a cocktail of chemicals that targets cancerous cells without affecting healthy tissue, and palliative care. Palliative care accepts the inevitable course of disease leading to death.
The final issue is that a systemic cancer, such as lymphoma, stands in contrast to a tumour, which exists at a defined point. Treatment is different for each type. Systemic cancers require chemotherapy, while point cancers require surgery.
Hamas as a cancer.
Some may object to my characterization of Hamas as a cancer since they see Hamas as freedom fighters for Palestinian independence. No comment. No apology.
The origin of Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood, which started in Egypt during the late 1920s as a labour movement among Suez Canal dockworkers, led by Hassan al-Banna. Its goals were to spread Islam across the Arab world, oppose colonialism (primarily British and French) and promote the Arab mission in Palestine. This movement has spread rapidly throughout the Middle East and beyond.
Hamas (Harakat-al-Muqawama-al-Islamiya or “Islamic Resistance Movement”) was established in 1987 following the first intifada, when Arabs living in Gaza, Judea/Samaria and East Jerusalem engaged in a violent protest against what Hamas and other groups perceived as unjustified Israeli governance over their lands. A core goal was to build support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which had lost support to Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) sponsored by Iran. It is one example of the conflict between Sunni Islam (Muslim Brotherhood) and Shia Islam (PIJ).
Rather than an isolated tumour, Hamas in Gaza is but a derivative lesion of the broader Muslim Brotherhood cancer. Although not part of the Palestinian Authority, it is the most popular movement in the West Bank. It may well have had a hand in the weekend attack in Jerusalem that killed six and injured 13, although many malign actors are available.
Another Muslim Brotherhood lesion is the Hamas leadership that has remained ensconced in luxury Qatar hotels. Israel’s recent attack on the Hamas leadership in Qatar is another attempt to excise the tumour, with a subtle twist. Qatar has operated duplicitously. On the one hand, it has sheltered Hamas leaders and shovelled buckets of money to support their war against Israel while also serving as a “neutral” mediator in the hostage negotiation. Along with Iran and Türkiye, it is a significant funder of the Brotherhood, not only throughout the Middle East, but also in Europe and North America.
Qatar has also opened a series of tumours in post-secondary education, especially in its funding of elite universities. This aligns with the long view inherent in radical Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood. Funding “endowed chairs” enables external funders to circumvent standard academic hiring procedures, placing academics with specific viewpoints in key academic positions. This becomes a critical element in the metastasis of radical Islam. In addition to promoting Islam and an anti-Israel perspective, these faculty members work in partnership with post-modern ideologies that undermine recognition of the past achievements of Western civilization. This is not to defend the past, as much exists in Western history that needs correction.
Defeating Hamas: Tactical win or strategic loss?
Israel’s goals in Gaza have fluctuated, reflecting its extraordinary duration and the existence of the hostages. Many do not want the Netanyahu government to proceed with the final expulsion of Hamas from Gaza. Most opponents to such a campaign within Israel fear it is not possible without massively increased civilian casualties, further hostage deaths, and a prohibitive cost in soldiers’ lives for the Israel Defence Forces.
In addition to the potential costs, commentators such as Andrew Fox believe it is not possible to eliminate Hamas. His essential point is that Hamas has shown a remarkable capacity to adapt. However, he has applauded the attack on the Hamas leadership in Qatar.
The situation has become dire. First, throughout the Middle East, a multitude of cancerous lesions exist in the form of radical Islamic parties vying for control. In the West Bank, in addition to Fatah, the Palestinian Authority (PA) includes other factions such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (a Marxist-Leninist group), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian Peoples Party, and the Palestine Popular Struggle Front. Not part of the PA, but very influential and popular are Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
In Gaza, in addition to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the major political factions include Fatah (much weakened since 2007), a range of Salafi-Jihad Groups, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, all of which vie for support. Finally, in addition, several clan-based militias are operating, which Israel currently funds and arms, primarily to irritate Hamas.
A multitude of factions may arise to fill the vacuum if Hamas disappears. Indeed, none are anywhere as strong and capable as Hamas was. But deep pockets exist in the form of Qatar, Türkiye, and Iran to rebuild Islamist military capacity in Gaza.
The many points of radical Islam, comprising funding in Western universities, the mass migration that results in multiple Western societies being unable to integrate newcomers, and post-modern ideas infusing government and corporate management, have merged to create a systemic cancer that seems impervious to treatment, certainly to precise tumour excision.
Israel can play a furious whack-a-mole model of surgical strikes to excise the many tumorous lesions originating from the Muslim Brotherhood. And it may succeed in bringing Hamas to the table to release the remaining hostages and cease its Gaza operations. Israel can score a tactical victory.
But if the West declines to address the systemic cancer of radical Islam and Hamas reconstitutes itself in the West Bank, a strategic victor will elude Israel, and it will return to excising yet another tumour.
Israel’s refusal to wage the information war and Western leaders losing their way and becoming politically indebted to recent migrants may become the strategic errors prolonging the conflict.