Vincent Lam

Who is Vincent Lam?

Vincent Lam is a Canadian writer and medical doctor.

Born in London, Ontario and raised in Ottawa, his parents came to Canada from the Chinese expatriate community in Vietnam. He attended St. Pius X High School and did his medical training at the University of Toronto, graduating in 1999. He now works as an emergency physician at Toronto East General Hospital and also does international air evacuation work and expedition medicine on Arctic and Antarctic ships.

Lam's first two published works, the medical guide The Flu Pandemic and You and the short story collection Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, are based on his experiences in medical school. Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures won the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada's richest and most prestigious literary award, on November 7, 2006. Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures was also a finalist for The Story Prize in 2008.

Following Lam's Giller win, Shaftesbury Films announced that it had reached a deal to adapt Bloodletting into a television series, which debuted in January 2010 on HBO Canada.

Lam published a biography of Canadian politician Tommy Douglas, as part of Penguin Canada's Extraordinary Canadians series of historical biographies.