Dr. Vincent Lam

Dr. Vincent Lam was born in London, Ontario. He is from the expatriate Chinese community of Vietnam. He studied medicine in Toronto, where he is an emergency physician at the Toronto East General Hospital, and a writer. Dr. Lam’s first book, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, won Canada’s most prestigious literary award, the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2006. This is the first debut work ever to win the prize, and Dr. Lam is the youngest writer to be awarded this prize. Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures is currently being adapted for television.

Dr. Lam is a contributor to The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Toronto Star, Toronto Life Magazine, and The New York Times. Dr. Lam won a National Magazine Award in 2007 for his article, The Best Medicine. He is the co-author of The Flu Pandemic and You, which received a Special Recognition Award from the American Medical Writer’s Association in 2007. His forthcoming novel, Cholon, Near Forgotten, tells the tale of a Chinese gambler in 1960’s Saigon. Dr. Lam lives with his wife and family in Toronto.