http://surgery.utoronto.ca |
October 2011
Volume 1, Issue 2
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MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR
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Many of you will recall that our last major Strategic Plan was performed in 2004, and was entitled “Breaking through the Boundaries”. It is now time for us to embark on a new strategic planning effort this academic year. To this end, you will recall that in September, we surveyed members of the Department to determine what the most important issues are for us over the next 5 years. I am pleased to report that we had almost 150 respondents to the survey from across all of our institutions. Respondents selected our areas of greatest need to be post-graduate medical education, undergraduate medical education, best surgical practices/quality, surgical innovation and simulation, and faculty development. Faculty mentoring and the potential of a competitive pension plan were also considered to be important issues to address. When asked what the single most important issue is facing the Department of Surgery, the following responses received multiple hits: Jobs for graduating residents; integration of academic activities across all institutions; support of surgical research; surgical innovation; international surgery; recruitments, retentions, and retirements; and fundraising or advancement.
These survey responses have helped us focus our attention on 5 major themes going forward: 1) Education; 2) Faculty Development; 3) Best Practices/Quality; 4) Research; and 5) Integration. Cutting across all themes will be advancement, innovation, and our social responsibility as surgeons. The timing of our Strategic Planning initiative is perfect, as we can harmonize our efforts with the recently developed and publicized Faculty of Medicine strategic plan (http://www.facmed.utoronto.ca/Assets/FacMed+Digital+Assets/Leadership/Strategic+Academic+Plan+2011-2016.pdf) I am pleased to inform you that we have retained Helena Axler as our Strategic Plan facilitator. Helena helped us with our 2004 Strategic Plan, and knows the Department well. We have also formed a Steering Committee for the new Strategic Plan, and we held our first planning committee this month. The names of the Steering Committee members are found below. I look forward to working with all of you on our new Strategic Plan. This plan will provide the blueprint of our future in the Department over the next 5 years. Sincerely, James T. Rutka, MD, PhD, FRCSC Strategic Planning Steering Committee Members: James T Rutka, Chair, Department of Surgery Ori Rotstein, Associate Chair, Surgeon-in-Chief, St Michael’s Ben Alman, Vice Chair Research, Division Chair Orthopedics David Latter, Vice Chair Education, Division Head Cardiac Surgery, St Michael’s Robin Richards,Vice Chair Clinical, Surgeon-in-Chief, Sunnybrook Robin McLeod, Vice Chair Quality, Head Surgical Clinical Epidemiology, Mt Sinai Avery Nathens, Chair, Departmental Appointments Committee, General Surgery, St Michael’s Andras Kapus, Associate Chair Research, Scientist, St Michael’s Bryce Taylor, Professor, General Surgery Dimitri Anastakis, Interim Vice Dean CEPD UofT, Chair Division PRS Carol Swallow, Division Head, Surgeon-Scientist, Mt Sinai Cindi Morshead, Scientist, Division Chair, Anatomy George Christakis, Director Undergraduate Medical Education, Cardiac Surgery, Sunnybrook Norman Hill, Vice President, Medical and Academic Affairs, General Surgery, Trillium Ron Levine, Director Postgraduate Education, Division PRS, St Joseph’s Paul Karanicolas, General Surgery, Sunnybrook Darina Landa, Department of Surgery Senior Development Officer Lakho Sandhu, Department of Surgery Resident Representative |
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UPCOMING EVENTS 2011 George Armstrong-Peters Prize Recipient, Dr. Michael Taylor
2011 Lister Prize Recipient, Dr. Tom Waddell Future University Rounds
Dec. 2, 2011, 7:30 – 8:30 a.m. |
WHAT'S INSIDE
1. In Memoriam
2. Newsworthy Items
3. Honours and Awards
4. High-Impact Papers Published |
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In Memoriam
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Leith Garrett Douglas![]()
We are saddened to announce Dr. Leith Garrett’s passing on September 15, 2011 at the age of 80.
Leith was born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. After earning his medical degree from Dalhousie University in 1962 he went on to study plastic surgery in Toronto, Sweden, Austria and England, receiving his fellowship in 1967. He practiced in Toronto at The Wellesley and St. Michael's Hospitals and finished his career in the operating room at the Toronto Western Hospital in 2011. Leith will also be remembered for his enthusiastic work as plastic surgeon to the Toronto Maple Leafs for 36 years. ![]() |
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Newsworthy Items
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Department of Surgery Undergraduate Medical Education Retreat September 27th
On Tuesday September 27th, George Christakis, Director Undergraduate Medical Education (UME) organized a special retreat for faculty and medical students to review our current curriculum for teaching medical students in all years, with an emphasis on the Years 3-4 clerkship experience. Faculty and medical students engaged in UME from across all institutions participated in the retreat. The goals of the retreat were to identify strengths and challenges facing the Department of Surgery’s UME program at this time. Some of the issues that arose in discussion included variability of didactic lectures during the 1 week “Crash Course”, less than optimal orientation of clinical clerks on surgical services in some institutions, incomplete standardization of the core curriculum for clerks, and variability of the clinical experience in the operating room, ward, and clinics. These and other issues were discussed at significant length, and plans have been made to address these issues stepwise using both short term and long term strategies. Please watch for continued notices from the Department of Surgery regarding our efforts to improve the UME curriculum and experience for medical students in the months ahead!
University Rounds
Presentations by the George Armstrong-Peters and Lister Prize Winners Friday November 4, 2011 Auditorium, Mount Sinai Hospital 18th Floor 7:30 – 8:30 am 2011 George Armstrong-Peters Prize Recipient, Dr. Michael Taylor, Division of Neurosurgery, the Hospital for Sick Children ![]()
Michael began his faculty appointment in the Division of Neurosurgery in July 2004 having completed a fellowship in pediatric neurosurgery at St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. He was promoted to Associate Professor in July 2010. He holds a CIHR Clinician-Scientist Phase II Award, and received the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons Gold Medal Award in surgery in 2010. A recipient of one of the prestigious Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 awards in 2008, Michael has distinguished himself both as an outstanding pediatric neurosurgeon and as a talented researcher who holds major grants from the CIHR, Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute, NIH, and Genome Canada. His research work is leading to new treatment paradigms for children with medulloblastoma and ependymoma.
2011 Lister Prize Recipient, Dr. Tom Waddell, Division Chair Thoracic Surgery, Toronto General Hospital ![]()
Dr. Sidney Levitsky Delivers 2011 Bigelow Lecture
![]() Left to right: Drs. Rutka, Fremes, Levitsky, and Caldarone
Dr Mark Bernstein Honoured at Sony Centre Guangzhou Ballet Performance
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Honours and Awards
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High Impact Papers Hot Off the Press |
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Bazerbachi F, Selzner M, Boehnert MU, Marquez MA, Norgate A, McGilvray ID, Schiff J, Cattral MS. Thymoglobulin Versus Basiliximab Induction Therapy for Simultaneous Kidney-Pancreas Transplantation: Impact on Rejection, Graft Function, and Long-Term Outcome. Transplantation. 2011 Oct 13 (Epub ahead of print)
Borschel GH, Kawamura DH, Kasukurthi R, Hunter DA, Zuker RM, Woo AS. The motor nerve to the masseter muscle: An anatomic and histomorphometric study to facilitate its use in facial reanimation. J Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg. 2011 Oct 10. (Epub ahead of print) Hickey EJ, Nosikova Y, Zhang H, Caldarone CA, Benson L, Redington A, Van Arsdell GS. Very low-birth-weight infants with congenital cardiac lesions: Is there merit in delaying intervention to permit growth and maturation? J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2011 Oct 22 (Epub ahead of print) Ibrahim GM, Weidauer S, Vatter H, Raabe A, Macdonald RL. Attributing Hypodensities on CT to Angiographic Vasospasm is Not Sensitive and Unreliable. Stroke. 2011 Oct 13. (Epub ahead of print) Kuzyk PR, Shah S, Zdero R, Olsen M, Waddell JP, Schemitsch EH. A Biomechanical Comparison of Static Versus Dynamic Lag Screw Modes for Cephalomedullary Nails Used to Fix Unstable Peritrochanteric Fractures. J Trauma, 2011 Sep 15. (Epub) Riad S, Biau D, Holt GE, Werier J, Turcotte RE, Ferguson PC, Griffin AM, Dickie CI, Chung PW, Catton CN, O’sullivan B, Wunder JS. The clinical and functional outcome for patients with radiation-induced soft tissue sarcoma. Cancer. 2011 Oct 11. Doi:10.1002/cncr.26543. (Epub ahead of print) Rowland JR, Lee JJ, Salewski RP, Eftekharpour E, van der Kooy D, Fehlings MG. Generation of neural stem cells from embryonic stem cells using the default mechanism: in vitro and in vivo characterization. Stem Cells and Development. 2011 Jul 5; doi: 10.1089/scd.2011.2014.Online ahead of print. Zhong T, McCarthy C, Min S, Zhang J, Beber B, Pusic AL, Hofer SOP. Patient satisfaction and health-related quality of life following autologous tissue breast reconstruction: A prospective analysis of early postoperative outcomes. Cancer, October 24, 2011 (On-line) Have a new high impact paper in press or published? Let us know at s.neilson@utoronto.ca |
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For further information on divisional events, please go to the Surgery Bulletin Board http://surgery.utoronto.ca/news/bulletin-board.htm |
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