Renown pediatric brain surgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson will be giving a lecture on health care at  1 p.m. at Seattle Pacific University today, Tuesday, April 6.

In 1987, Carson led a team of 70 in the first successful separation of craniopagus conjoined twins connected at the back of the head. During his distinguished career, he has received hundreds of awards and recognitions, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. A highly regarded motivational speaker, Carson has addressed audiences from grade school classrooms to the National Prayer Breakfast. The 2009 movie Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story, starring Cuba Gooding Jr., is based on Carson’s life.

This event is free and  open to the public. The lecture will be held in the Upper Gwinn Commons at SPU. For more information contact Bobbie Taylor at 206-281-2723 or btaylor@spu.edu.

(Photo courtesy of Tracy Norlen, SPU News and Media Relations Manager).

The Queen Anne Movie Guild will be showing Sick Around the World, FRONTLINE as part of their monthly second Saturday film screening this Saturday, March 13 at 7 p.m. at the Queen Anne United Methodist Church, located at 1616 5th Ave W., across from the QA branch of the Seattle Public Library.

In Sick Around the World, FRONTLINE, PBS and veteran Washington Post foreign correspondent T.R. Reid investigate health care in the United States by comparing how five other capitalist democracies – Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Taiwan – handle health care, tackling the question of what we might learn from their successes and failures.

Get a full synopsis of the film here.

As always, the QA Movie Guild’s second Saturday series is free and open to the public. Each month the volunteer group brings different independent documentary films to the Queen Anne community,  focusing on prevalent issues that provoke conversation.

The focus of the movies will be what makes communities work, community sustainability and environmental issues. Some of the questions we ask when previewing films are: “Does this film address solutions to the economic or environmental issues we have in Seattle? Does it give useful approaches to the economic changes we are facing? Does it realistically inform us about how to be wiser consumers? Is it interesting and does it have entertainment value?”

For more information see QueenAnneMovieGuild.org.

The 36th legislative delegation (hey, that’s us!) has announced today that Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, Reps. Mary Lou Dickerson and Reuven Carlyle will be hosting a town hall at the end of the month with the chair of the Senate Health & Long-Term Care Committee, Sen. Karen Keiser, and the chair of the House Health Care & Wellness Committee, Rep. Eileen Cody.

The meeting will address current issues surrounding the health care debate, and Keiser and Cody will discuss the potential impact of federal health reform efforts on Washington residents.

For more information, contact Anne Burkland at (360) 786-7078 or Burkland.Anne@leg.wa.gov.