Agnes Wong

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT AGNES WONG

I am a physician, chaplain, scientist, university professor, writer, artist, translator, and mom. I live in Toronto, Canada, where I am Professor of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Psychology at the University of Toronto and a staff physician and senior scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children. I am the former Ophthalmologist-in-Chief at The Hospital for Sick Children and the former Vice-Chair of Research in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Toronto, where I held the inaugural John & Melinda Thompson Chair in Vision Neuroscience for a decade. In addition to clinical and academic activities, I received lay ordination as a chaplain and Dharma Holder (empowerment to teach) in the Soto Zen lineage from Roshi Joan Halifax, Ph.D, Abbott of the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. I am a lead faculty of the Mindfulness and Compassion Training for Health and End-of-Life Care Professionals program at the Sarana Institute in Toronto. As a surgeon and clinician, I also give talks and run workshops on physician well-being at many professional organizations, universities, and hospitals worldwide, with the goal of enhancing physicians\' skills in mindfulness, compassion, self-reflection, and systems thinking. My literary and artistic work includes poetry, photography, and translation of ancient Chinese classics (Tao Te Ching). My work speaks to love, loss, vulnerability, healing, femininity, and spirituality—dimensions of human existence that are not often acknowledged in our modern busy lives. One of my most recent books is \"The Art and Science of Compassion, A Primer,\" which provides a conceptual framework and practical approaches to cultivating compassion by presenting a wealth of scientific evidence supporting that compassion is both innate and trainable.