Cold Steel: Canadian Journal of Surgery Podcast

This week we were joined by Dr. Pasieka once again to talk about strategies to find stress and burnout as surgeons, especially in the context of COVID19. Check out her paper below! Links: 1. Shinrin-yoku, yoga and other strategies in the fight against COVID-19. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8405594/ Bio: Dr. Janice L Pasieka graduated from the University of Western Medical School an...

Dr. Bill Wall is one of the pioneers of liver transplantation, especially in Canada. We spoke to him on this episode about his training, the early days of transplantation and about his new children's book! Links: 1. Member of the Order of Canada: https://www.gg.ca/en/honours/recipients/146-9121 Bio (from https://www.gg.ca/en/honours/recipients/146-9121) William Wall is a dedicated and compassionat...

This week we had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Peter Brennan (https://twitter.com/BrennanSurgeon?s=20&t=VZQWDi0op02x9_8qdn3Avg). Dr. Brennan is an oral maxillofacial surgeon in Portsmouth, England. A tremendously accomplished academic, Dr. Brennan has a keen interest in human factors in surgery. In addition, he is the co-editor of the Gray’s Surgical Anatomy.  Links: 1. Dr. Brennan’s PhD on...

Welcome to all our Cold Steel listeners! We are excited to be collaborating with the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons or SAGES. SAGES produces an excellent podcast called the SAGES stories podcast, where they highlight some of the amazing work SAGES members have been doing.  In this episode, SAGES stories hosts Shirin Towfigh and Kevin El Hayek interview one of our favo...

Dr. Jonathan Meakins is former Chair of the Department of Surgery at McGill and is an Officer of the Order of Canada for his outstanding work in immunobiology, laparoscopic surgery, and transplantation. Among his many interests is his love of art, and at the age of 73 Dr. Meakins has gone back to school to obtain his Masters in Fine Arts. Check out the links to see some of the fascinating work Dr....

Dr. Pat Sylla (https://twitter.com/patsyllamd?s=20&t=_w5QG96wjQE-0ttVJJaUmw) is a minimally invasive and colorectal surgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. She is a world famous innovator and was the first surgeon in the world to perform a transanal total mesorectal excision for rectal cancer. We caught up with her in-person (!) at the recent Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endos...

Dr. Eric Pauli is a surgical endoscopist at Penn State. He has a very varied and novel practice, including abdominal wall reconstruction, endoscopy and general surgery. We had a great talk with him about surgical endoscopy and his work on endoscopic management of anastomotic leaks. This is also our very first video version of the podcast! Check it out on the CJS YouTube page: https://www.youtube.c...

Dr. Elizabeth Clement (https://twitter.com/LizClementMD?s=20&t=l43U6ZXhsJgw39faiXIpQQ), colorectal surgery fellow at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, put together a fantastic set of mock oral exams. These were delivered at the Alberta Association of General Surgeons (AAGS) annual meeting in Banff in November 2021.  We were grateful to be able to use some of the recordings to share with you so...

This week we were joined by Dr. Bill Kent, a cardiac surgeon at the University of Calgary, to talk about minimally invasive techniques in cardiac surgery. We were curious to learn from him where MIS techniques fit in an era of rapid evolution in cardiac surgery and particularly with the advent of new catheter based techniques. Dr. Kent had a number of important insights into the introduction of ne...

In this episode, we chatted with Drs. Wesley Francis, Don Major, and Greg Padmore. These fantastic surgeons came from the Carribean to train in North America, and we were curious to explore what their experience was like and how they used their training to improve surgical care when they returned home.  Links: 1. https://www.ahpba.org/ 2. Cancer Surgery Centre Bahamas - https://cancersurgerybahama...

We were delighted this week to have Dr. Tarek Razek (https://twitter.com/Trazek) on the podcast with us. Dr. Razek is a trauma surgeon at McGill University and really a major figure in global surgery in Canada, and he pondered with us the questions with us of how we can best make an impact in global surgery without repeating the colonialism of the past. His approach is beautifully summarized in hi...

Dr. Su-Yin MacDonell (https://twitter.com/MacdonellSu?s=20&t=x_rOcGb83XcxYyWjb0ow2g) is an anesthetist specializing in periop medicine at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. She is particularly interested in the concept of noise in the OR, and how that can affect decision-making and focus in the OR. We were privileged to hear about her research around noise in the OR, and her thoughts around how...

This week we were joined again by Dr. Colin Schieman for a masterclass on paraesophageal hernias! Dr. Schieman is a previous guest on the podcast and is a thoracic surgeon in Calgary. In this episode we discuss types of paraesophageal hernia, the management of gastric volvulus, as well as operative approaches to repair. Links:  1. Colin Schieman on Direct Entry Training: https://soundcloud.com/cjs...

In this episode we had a great conversation with Dr. Sam Minor. Dr. Minor is a general surgeon in Halifax, Nova Scotia at Dalhousie. Dr. Minor has helped develop in situ trauma simulations that help not just residents but also staff surgeons prepare for major traumatic injuries. Dr. Minor also tells us about what it’s like to practice in Halifax and about some of his other research interests.  1....

We’ve all experienced the frustration of working in clinical environments that just don’t seem to be set up intuitively. But what if there were ways to improve the design of the places and processes where clinicians practice? In this episode, we spoke with Dr. Andrew Petrosoniak and Dr. Chris Hicks, both ER docs at St. Mike’s Hospital in downtown Toronto. They have done extensive work on human-cen...

We are delighted to bring you our CaRMS 2022 general surgery residency highlights! We invited all the English-speaking general surgery programs across the country on to the podcast to talk about what makes their program unique. We were able to get most of the programs across country. Our hope is that this episode will be helpful for prospective applicants to learn a bit about the programs as we he...

Happy new year to all our listeners! We hope you all have a fulfilling and healthy 2022! We are very excited this week to bring you this episode on Black Surgeons in North America. This initiative lead by Dr. Don Nakayama  is an amazing collection of the contributions of black surgeons across North America. We were lucky to sit down with Dr. Vivian McAllister, a longtime friend of the podcast and...

This week we had a masterclass on common bile duct injuries by Dr. Francis Sutherland. Dr. Sutherland is a hepatobiliary surgeon at the University of Calgary. Dr. Sutherland talks about not just how CBD injuries happen, but why they happen, and the cognitive biases that lead up to them. Please check out the show notes for videos and papers that supplement our discussion.  Links: 1. The importance...

This week on the podcast we talked about a topic that we have heard about all too frequently on the news lately: gun violence. We were joined by Dr. John Kortbeek, a trauma and critical care surgeon at the University of Calgary. We asked Dr. Kortbeek about the topic of gun control in general and specifically on gun control policies in Canada.  1. Canadian Doctors for Protection from Guns. https://...

Welcome back to another episode of our “Companion” series on the important topic of death and dying in surgery.  Dr. Kelly Vogt lead our discussion, and we were lucky enough to also be joined again by Dr. Morad Hameed. We focused on the topic of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), but branched out to explore how we can better prepare surgeons and patients for discussions around end of life care. W...

This week on the podcast we spoke with Dr. John Neary, an internist at McMaster University. Dr. Neary was instrumental in submitting a motion in 2020 that asked that Royal College Exam waive the requirements to write the royal college exam for trainees graduating in 2020, given the challenges that COVID19 were presenting for the administration of the exam. We also talked about the decision of the...

Dr. Teodor Grantcharov (https://twitter.com/TGrantcharovMD?s=20) is a bariatric surgeon at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. Dr. Grantcharov is world renowned for his work on the OR blackbox, a platform that allows for immense data capture (video, audio, physiologic) as well as advanced analytics. We asked Dr. Grantcharov about what it took to develop the OR blackbox, not just technologically, bu...

This week we were joined by Dr. Sunil Patel (https://twitter.com/epipatelmd?s=20). Dr. Patel is a colorectal surgeon in Kingston, Ontario. The group in Kinston is one of the few general surgery groups in Canada that has really utilized robotics in their practice, and we wanted to understand both why and how they introduced robotics into their group. Dr. Patel has also done fascinating research int...

This week we were lucky enough to have a masterclass with Dr. Helen Macrae, a colorectal surgeon at Mount Sinai in Toronto. We talked about her career in surgical education. We then leveraged Dr. Macrae's considerable expertise and got her approach to the acute colitic, laparoscopic total colectomy, and pelvic pouch reconstruction. Links: 1. Teaching Surgical Skills — Changes in the Wind. https://...

This is a special episode for us! We celebrate our 100th episode by presenting a mix of some of our favourite "advices" from our guests. We have to thank all of our many guests who have shared their time, expertise, and passion with us.  We look forward to bringing you many more episodes! As always, would love to hear your thoughts and feedback at podcast.cjs@gmail.com or @canjsurg on twitter.