OMA remembers slain doctor Elana Fric at spring council

The Ontario Medical Association is remembering slain doctor Elana Fric with purple ribbons at its 2017 spring council.

The organization handed out the ribbons, meant to serve as a reminder about the realities of domestic violence, to those attending the two-day event this weekend.

Fric was at last fall's council meeting where OMA board director Lesley Barron met her.

The gathering took place just days before Fric was missing and then found dead. Her husband, Dr. Mohammed Shamji,is charged with first-degree murder in connection with her death.

"We ended up having dinner that night when she shared with us that she was getting a divorce from her husband, but not a lot else about the situation," Barron told CBC Toronto. "Then I remember being in complete shock to find out that she had been killed... and sort of regretting that I had not seen some of the warning signs."

Barron says Fric was "very bubbly and friendly" and presented motions eloquently at the council.

'Someone I looked up to'

University of Toronto medicine student Victoria Reedman says she didn't know Fric personally, but was affected by her death. She says she is wearing a ribbon because she has also been a victim of violence against women.

"Violence against women is such of an extreme form of sexism in our society," Reedman said. "For an organization with the political power of the OMA to stand [against] it, I am very honoured to be a part of that."

Fric was a mentor to medical students and a professor at U of T, Reedman says.

"Even without knowing her, she was someone I looked up to," she said. "It was particularly striking and upsetting to see someone so promising, especially a female physician leader, to be taken in such a violent way."

Shamji was arrested three days after Fric's body was discovered in a suitcase under a bridge near Vaughan, Ont., on Dec. 1. Fric died from strangulation and blunt-force trauma, according to investigators.

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The OMA has had several initiatives to help remember Fric, including fundraising to help support her children and pay for her funeral. But thepurple ribbon campaign predates the murder of Fric, Barron said.

"The purple ribbon campaign just served to remind people that all groups are at risk for domestic violence," she said. "I think that it was shocking to a lot of us that something like that could happen to a colleague of ours."

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