The Existential Dispatch, Issue No. 5

A Word from the Founding Director

Today is Canada Day week — a season that tends to speak in the language of celebration and certainty. But in healthcare, the week after a holiday often feels like the return of what was merely paused: pain that didn’t take the day off; grief that kept moving; decisions that were deferred, not dissolved. Existential inquiry begins in that gap between the calendar’s promises and lived reality.

So, this issue is a small invitation: to notice what returns when the noise quiets. What needs your attention not because it is urgent, but because it is true? In clinical work, meaning is rarely discovered in grand revelations. More often, it is reclaimed in the ordinary: a hard conversation made possible, a boundary held, a patient met without rushing to fix.

Existential Thinker of the Issue

Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855)

Danish philosopher and theologian; a thinker of anxiety, choice, and what it means to become a self.

Aphorism (from The Sickness Unto Death): “The self is a relation that relates itself to itself.”

Why it matters in clinical/existential practice: Kierkegaard’s line points to a quietly radical claim: identity is not a static thing we possess, but an ongoing relationship we keep making. Illness often collapses that relationship—people are reduced to diagnoses, roles shrink, time narrows. Kierkegaard helps us name the lived experience of that collapse as existential suffering (not merely “symptoms”). Practically, it suggests a clinical question that is not simply “How are you coping?” but “What parts of yourself are you trying to keep in relation right now—values, roles, commitments—and what support would make that possible?”

In Academia

A Frontiers in Psychiatry perspective argues that generative AI should be understood as “interactional infrastructure” for meaning-centered care in later life—supporting life review and dignity-preserving narrative work within a Sensing–Narrating–Connecting–Governing framework, with explicit safeguards. frontiersin.org

National Nurses United’s report, The State of Workplace Violence in Health Care in 2025–2026, analyzes survey data collected July 2025–May 2026 (1,267 RNs) on experiences of workplace violence—useful evidence for general workplace violence prevention efforts and for understanding the moral/existential costs of working under threat. nationalnursesunited.org

In Film, Literature and Culture

The Lavazza IncluCity Festival (Toronto) runs June 25–July 19, 2026—an outdoor programme that often foregrounds belonging, displacement, and the everyday drama of meaning-making in multicultural public space. icff.ca

As part of the Lavazza IncluCity Festival, the immersive exhibit “AiRTIFICIAL Visions” runs June 25–July 25, 2026, bringing AI artists into direct conversation with identity and the human condition. icff.ca

In Healthcare (Global)

The American Hospital Association’s Circle of Life Award (2027) application period is open May 20 through July 15, 2026 (1 p.m. ET), recognizing innovation in palliative and end-of-life care—an institutional signal that “how we die” remains a quality domain. aha.org

MASCC maintains a rolling list of supportive-care events around the world, including multiple July 2026 palliative/supportive-care gatherings—useful for tracking psychosocial oncology access & equity and supportive-care practice spaces. mascc.org

Funding and Grant Opportunities

PCORI Engagement Award: Convening Support (Spring 2026 Cycle) lists an application deadline of July 13, 2026 (5 p.m. ET), supporting stakeholder convenings as legitimate infrastructure for evidence, equity, and meaning-making. pcori.org

Conferences and Events

Palliative Care All Island Practice Conference (Ireland) will be held Sept 8, 2026, with an abstract submission deadline of 5 p.m. Friday, July 24, 2026. professionalpalliativehub.com

The Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (ACLP) lists its 2026 Annual Meeting for Nov 18–21, 2026 (San Diego), and notes a Call for Abstracts. clpsychiatry.org

The Toronto Fringe Festival runs June 30–July 12, 2026—an annual reminder that risk-taking, small-scale stories are where meaning gets rehearsed in public. broadwayworld.com

Startup and Innovation Watch

The Lavazza IncluCity Festival describes “AiRTIFICIAL Visions” as an immersive exhibition where artists use AI to explore identity, emotion, and the human condition—an adjacent innovation lens on what “human-centered” means when technology mediates narrative and selfhood. icff.ca

To Close: An Existential Joke

I tried to find myself this morning. Turns out I’d already scheduled it for next week.