Research

Dr. John Harlock MD FRCSC

Division of Vascular Surgery

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Diverse interests in the field of Vascular Surgery, including aneurysmal and occlusive disease. We have begun a partnership with TaARI (Thrombosis and Atherosclerosis Research Institute) to begin analyzing and exploring the inflammatory process involved in human abdominal aortic aneurysm atheroma and thrombus. I am also supervising a number of lower extremity revascularization observational studies and systematic reviews to help identify risk factors for graft thrombosis and optimal revascularization strategies. We are also in the process of exploring the educational experience of our direct entry vascular surgery residents in a qualitative manner through the use of online focus groups.

Dr. Ranil R. Sonnadara PhD

Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery

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Dr. Sonnadara holds academic appointments in the Departments of Surgery, Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, and Health Research Methodology (amongst others) at McMaster, as well as administrative appointments as Special Advisor to the VP (Research and International Affairs) and Head of Research and High Performance Computing for the University. He also holds academic appointments as an Educator Researcher at the Wilson Centre for Health Professionals Education, as a Non-Clinician Scientist in the Department of Surgery at the University of Toronto, and as a Core Member of the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind. A behavioural neuroscientist by training, Dr. Sonnadara uses a variety of different methodologies to study changes in the body which arise as a result of learning and practice, from the initial stages of skill acquisition through to elite and expert level performance across a wide variety of domains. He is particularly interested in the role of feedback in learning and assessing complex skills. Dr. Sonnadara’s interests in this area grew out of his own experiences as a professional musician and an elite level coach. For more information, please visit www.skillslab.ca.

Dr. Christian Finley MD FRCS (C)

Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery

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My academic and professional interest in optimal patient care and quality improvement has been influential in my approach to the practice of medicine. I have focused on these at a grass roots level in my research. I have sought to look at the delivery of thoracic surgery from a high level and have looked to improve the delivery of care though the assessment of clinically relevant questions. I have also worked within the Canadian Association of Thoracic Surgeons to build a standardized, consensus-based national database to give surgeons risk adjusted outcomes and to provide a framework both for national research and quality initiatives, leading to the upcoming Canadian Association of Thoracic Surgeons Quality Improvement Program. I have also worked through the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer to build national standards and I am writing a position paper for that organization on the regionalization of resource intensive cancer surgery, another key research interest.

My academic and professional interest in optimal patient care and quality improvement has been influential in my approach to the practice of medicine.

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Dr. Luis Braga MD MSc PhD

Division of Urology

Dr. Braga is the Director of the McMaster Pediatric Surgery Research Collaborative (MPSRC), and the current Research Director of the Urology Residency Program. As well as his clinical practice as a pediatric urologist, Dr. Braga is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery, and holds cross appointments in both the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Department of Pediatrics. Dr. Braga's broad research interests include prenatal hydronephrosis, non-neurogenic lower urinary tract dysfunction, long-term outcomes of hypospadias repair, and cryptorchidism in the pediatric population. He is the Principal Investigator of the ALPHA trial, a multicenter, randomized placebo controlled trial to determine the effectiveness of antibiotic prophylaxis in reducing the number of febrile urinary tract infections in infants with high grade prenatal hydronephrosis. Dr. Braga also recently chaired an international taskforce on the standardization of hypospadias reporting based on the STROBE statement, which includes experts from eight countries and established uniform definitions in the field of hypospadias repair. This taskforce has led to the cultivation of an international hypospadias outcomes database, in order to establish long-term clinical outcome data.

Dr. Braga is the PI of the ALPHA trial, a multicenter, randomized placebo controlled trial determining the efficacy of antibiotic prophylaxis in reducing febrile urinary tract infections in infants

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Dr. Doron D. Sommer MD FRSC (C)

Division of Otolaryngology

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As an attending Otolaryngologist / Head & Neck surgeon at McMaster University Medical Centre and Hamilton General Hospital, Dr. Sommer is involved in multiple research projects on local, national and international levels. His broad research interests focus on minimally invasive surgical techniques, paranasal sinus inflammation, critical appraisal and pediatric obstructive sleep apnea. More specifically, his areas of expertise include surgical innovation, surgical safety including surgery specific operating room checklists, quality improvement and process redesign in rhinology/endoscopic skull base surgery, post-tonsillectomy analgesia, smoking cessation interventions and sialoendoscopy

Dr. Sommer’s areas of expertise include surgical innovation, surgical safety including surgery specific operating room checklists, quality improvement and process redesign.

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Dr. Achilleas Thoma MD FRCSC FACS

Division of Plastic Surgery

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Dr. Achilleas Thoma is Director of Surgical Outcomes Research Center (SOURCE) at the Department of Surgery, Clinical Professor at Division of Plastic Surgery, and Associate Member at Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatics at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Thoma served as the Head for the Division of Plastic Surgery from 1995 to 2012. His research focuses on the use of cost-effectiveness analysis in healthcare decision making. He has conducted several economic evaluations of novel plastic surgery procedures, including evaluation of autologous abdominal tissue-based breast reconstruction, breast reduction, hand and microsurgery. Dr. Thoma’s other research has focused on health-related quality of life, systematic review & meta-analysis and randomized controlled trials. He is the author or co-author of over 150 papers in the plastic surgery literature, and was the Editor of the Clinics in Plastic Surgery, Vol. 35 that dealt with methodological topics and issues in evidence-based surgery. He has also held numerous leadership positions in Eastern Great Lakes Head and Neck Association, GAM (Group pour l’advancement de Microchurugie (Canadian Microsurgical Society) and Canadian Society of Plastic Surgeons. He received his Masters in Clinical Epidemiology from McMaster University.

Being involved with the Surgical Outcomes Research Centre (SOURCE) at McMaster gave me the opportunity to disseminate evidence-based surgery principles to interested surgeons and researchers.

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Dr. Michelle Aileen Ghert MD FRCSC

Division of Orthopaedic Surgery

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Dr. Ghert is the Principal Investigator for Prophylactic Antibiotic Regimens in Tumor Surgery (PARITY) trial, which is the first ever prospective randomized trial in orthopaedic oncology. PARITY spans 5 continents and 11 countries. The study was funded in its pilot phase by the Canadian Cancer Society, and has received funding from CIHR for the definitive phase of the trial. Dr. Ghert is interested in working with the Musculoskeletal Tumor Society to advance musculoskeletal oncology research towards multicenter prospective collaborative trials. Dr. Ghert also has an interest in the cellular mechanisms of tumor metastasis in bone cancer and she has served on the Cancer Biology and Therapeutics review panel of CIHR for 5 years.

Dr. Ghert is the Principal Investigator for Prophylactic Antibiotic Regimens in Tumor Surgery (PARITY) trial, which is the first ever prospective randomized trial in orthopaedic oncology.

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Dr. Andre Lamy MD FRCSC

Division of Cardiac Surgery

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Dr. Andre Lamy is a cardiac surgeon practicing at Hamilton Health Sciences since 1996. He is a Professor in the Department of Surgery and an Associate member in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University. He is also an active member of the cardiac surgery group at the Population Health Research Institute in Hamilton. He has been involved in clinical research since the beginning of his career and has collaborated with most research groups, pharmaceutical and device companies around the world. His interests are centered on large randomized controlled trials (RCT) and health economics. Dr. Lamy received a large grant from the Canadian Institute of Health Research in 2007 for the CORONARY trial. CORONARY is a large multi-centered randomized trial of off-pump CABG surgery versus on-pump CABG surgery which recruited and randomized 4,752 patients from 79 centers in 19 countries. The results were presented as Late Breaking Clinical Trials at the American College of Cardiology meeting in 2012 and 2013. It is believed that CORONARY is the largest trial performed in surgery to this day and is a superb example of collaborative work among surgeons around the world. Dr. Lamy has accumulated over the years a large database of cardiovascular costs in about 40 countries and also produced economic analyses of major trial such as HOPE, CURE, ACTIVE-A, ORIGIN, ONTARGET and CORONARY. His current trial is VISION-Cardiac surgery, a prospective analysis of 15,000 patients around the world to determine the cut-off value and prognostic factor of the new generation of troponin essays after cardiac surgery.

It is believed that CORONARY is the largest trial performed in surgery to this day and is a superb example of collaborative work among surgeons around the world

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Dr. Olufemi R. Ayeni MD MSC FRCSC

Division of Orthopaedic Surgery

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I am an Associate Professor (Orthopaedic Surgery) and Program Director of the Sports Medicine and Arthroscopy fellowship at McMaster University. My clinical focus addresses sports injuries and arthroscopic surgery. My primary research interests are related to outcomes research in Sports Medicine, particularly Femoroacetabular Impingement. I am the Principal Investigator in a multi center CIHR funded randomized controlled trial evaluating the efficacy of surgical treatment for Femoroacetabular Impingement (the FIRST Trial). I believe that conducting research such as clinical trials will help refine our indications and enable us to determine the best surgical and non surgical strategies for addressing injuries impacting patient’s lives.

I believe that conducting research such as clinical trials will help refine our indications and enable us to determine the best surgical and non surgical strategies for addressing injuries.