About the Department
The Department of Surgery at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre is comprised of over 70 surgeons across multiple divisions.
All Department members are fully affiliated with the University of Toronto Department of Surgery. Surgical activity occurs over two sites: 2075 Bayview Avenue and the Holland Centre (43 Wellesley St East).
The Department is also home to Sunnybrook's trauma centre, 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 Centre.
This specialized surgical care in the areas of trauma, burns, cardiovascular disease, and cancer is heavily aligned with the mission of Sunnybrook — caring for our patients and their families when it matters most. Sunnybrook, through the Holland Bone and Joint Program has a major focus on arthroplasty, performing over 2,000 hip and knee replacements annually.
The Department of Surgery at Sunnybrook is home to many learners with over 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 regarding electives and other important information pertaining to education at Sunnybrook can be found through Medical Education at Sunnybrook.
Members of the 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, the ACS Trauma Quality Improvement Program, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons registry and the American Burn Association’s Burn registry. Together, these registries and benchmarking programs identify areas of strength, which we share with other health science centres through the Ontario Surgical Quality Improvement Network and areas for focused performance improvement. Quality improvement activities our led by our committed Surgical Performance Improvement Program staff.
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 over $100 million in research funding with over 1,275 research staff with areas of focus being imaging sciences, health services research, and the biological sciences. SRI is part of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and comprises over 500,000 square feet of laboratory and office space. 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. Avery B. Nathens
Surgeon-in-Chief, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Professor of Surgery, University of Toronto
De Souza Chair in Trauma Research
