Dr. Barnet ("Barnie") Berris.

Born in 1921 in Toronto, the son of Eastern European immigrant parents, Dr. Barnet (Barney) Berris graduated from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine in 1944. After completing his internship at St. Joseph’s Hospital he served in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps as a medical officer treating soldiers in Canada as World War II was coming to and end. He then completed his postgraduate training in internal medicine at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Upon his return to Toronto, he was instrumental in helping to break down the barriers and challenges that Jewish physicians faced in Canada at that time. In 1951, Dr. Berris was appointed to the staff of the Toronto General Hospital and became the first Jewish doctor to be granted a full time faculty position in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. In 1964 he was recruited as Chief of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, a position which he held until 1977. He continued to teach clinical medicine until 1987, beyond his official retirement.

When Dr. Berris became Chief of Medicine, the Mount Sinai Hospital had recently become a teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto. Dr. Berris was responsible for building the hospital’s foundations in research and education. He fostered the growth of a teaching program for medical students, interns and residents, supported the development and expansion of research activities including the Liver Research Unit and recruited excellent clinical, teaching and research staff.

As a clinician, he was beloved by his patients for his caring and compassion and his diagnostic acumen was renowned and respected by others in the medical community. As a teacher he was known as exceptional, inspiring and an outstanding role model. His research career was productive, resulting in 63 publications in peer-reviewed journal on various aspects of internal medicine including liver disease.

Dr. Berris was active in supporting the Faculty of Medicine’s academic mission, was an examiner for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and was a member of the governing council or the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

Colleagues at Mount Sinai Hospital established the Barnet Berris Lectureship in Medicine and community and physician leaders established the Barnet Berris Chair of Cancer Research at the Weizmann Institute in Israel in his honour.

In 1998, in recognition of his outstanding and exemplary contribution to medical education at the University of Toronto and Mount Sinai Hospital, his name was chosen to represent the Mount Sinai Hospital’s partnership in education with the University Health Network in the newly renamed Wightman-Berris Academy. This joining of names to represent the Academy was especially fitting as Dr. Kajer Wightman, who was Chair of Medicine at time that Dr. Berris was beginning his career as Chief of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, was both an important mentor and trusted collaborator and friend.

In 2001, Dr. Barnet Berris published his memoir “Medicine, My Story”. Dr. Berris died on October 5, 2009.

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