About the Department
The Blake & Belinda Goldring Department of Surgery at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre is comprised of more than 70 surgeons across multiple divisions.
All Department members are fully affiliated with the Department of Surgery at the University of Toronto. Surgical procedures are performed at our Bayview Campus and Holland Centre.
The Department is also home to Sunnybrook's Tory Trauma Program, the largest trauma centre in Canada, and the Ross Tilley Burn Centre. Many of our surgeons work within the Odette Cancer Centre, the sixth largest cancer centre in North America. Members of the Divisions of Vascular and Cardiac Surgery are engaged in advancing minimally invasive therapy for complex lower extremity, aortic, and structural heart disease through the Schulich Heart Program. In addition, Sunybrook’s Holland Bone and Joint Program has a major focus on arthroplasty, performing more than 2,000 hip and knee joint replacements annually.
This leading-edge surgical care in the areas of trauma, burns, cardiovascular disease, and cancer speaks to what makes Sunnybrook special: excellent and compassionate care for our patients when it matters most.
The Blake & Belinda Goldring Department of Surgery at Sunnybrook is home to many learners, with more than 240 post-graduate trainees and 60 medical students as part of the University of Toronto’s Peters-Boyd Academy. As an academic health sciences centre, we place a strong emphasis on teaching and ensuring our learners develop the skills they need to provide high quality surgical care with the patient at the centre. Information pertaining to education at Sunnybrook can be found here.
Members of the Blake & Belinda Goldring Department of Surgery pride themselves on the excellent care they provide to patients. To strive for the highest quality care, we participate in the American College of Surgeons (ACS) National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP), the ACS Trauma Quality Improvement Program, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons registry, and the American Burn Association's registry. The Odette Cancer Centre participates in quality and accessibility improvement in conjunction with the Surgical Oncology Program at Cancer Care Ontario. Together, these registries and benchmarking programs identify areas of strength, which we share with other health sciences centres through the Ontario Surgical Quality Improvement Network, and areas for performance improvement. Quality improvement activities are led by our Surgical Performance Improvement Program.
Sunnybrook’s surgeons are committed to research and innovation. Many of our surgeons are scientists who hold appointments at Sunnybrook Research Institute (SRI). SRI holds more than $100 million in research funding, with more than 1,275 staff focusing on research areas including imaging sciences, health services, and biological sciences. It is through SRI that our surgeons contribute to inventing the future of health care — through cost effectiveness research, advancing minimally invasive technologies, or modifying biological responses to reduce the burden of disease.
Dr. Frances Wright
Surgeon-in-Chief, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Affiliate Scientist, Sunnybrook Research Institute
Professor of Surgery, University of Toronto
