Canadian Society of Surgical Oncology
Canadian Society of Surgical Oncology
 

Mission Statement

The Canadian Society of Surgical Oncology (CSSO) is an organization made up of surgical oncologists and general surgeons across Canada that are dedicated to improving Cancer Care in Canada. They do this by performing the following:

  • Facilitating communication between surgeons whose primary interest lies in the field of oncology.

  • Encouraging the formation of surgical oncology training programs in surgical departments in Canadian universities.

  • Promoting the optimum treatment of the patient with cancer through a multi-disciplinary treatment approach.

  • Cooperating with other organizations, including the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC), the Canadian Association of General Surgeons (CAGS), The Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) and Canadian Oncology Societies (COS) in activities designed to achieve these objectives.

  • Fostering the development of education in cancer, for both graduate, undergraduate and continuing medical education.

  • Encouraging the development of research in oncologic surgery.

 

 

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NEW

CSSO Operating Grant

The Canadian Society of Surgical Oncology is pleased to announce the establishment of the CSSO Research Fund. This fund is specifically designed to support innovative research by new and emerging surgical oncology researchers, to increase their ability to secure competitive external funding.

One grant valued at $20,000 will be provided per year to a member of the CSSO. Grant proposals covering all aspects of surgical oncology are eligible, including translational research, health services research, quality improvement, clinical trials, clinical epidemiology, surgical education, technology and innovation. Selection will take place through an internal review process, with an objective to provide constructive feedback that can be used to improve future grant applications.

EQUITY, DIVERSITY, & INCLUSIVITY

Non-discrimination Statement

The Canadian Society of Surgical Oncology (CSSO) is deeply committed to the values of diversity, inclusion, and respect. We condemn racism, discrimination, and harassment in all forms. Our individual and shared responsibility as surgeons is to promote and protect the health and welfare of all Canadians. Surgical Oncologists provide care to patients across Canada and have a collective duty to eliminate the impacts of systemic inequalities, racism, and bigotry on the lives of Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour across the country. Whether it effects our patients and their families, our colleagues, or our trainees, we acknowledge our responsibility to listen and learn. We must all recognize and challenge those behaviours and practices that threaten our values of equity, diversity, and inclusivity, including racism and other forms of prejudice.

We are committed to ensuring nominations to leadership roles within the CSSO, the selection of our speakers and trainers, and our efforts to attract new members take into consideration the steps necessary to ensure our leadership, faculty, and membership are representative of the surgical oncology community and the diverse voices among surgeons in Canada and are heard and taken into consideration in our decision-making processes.

As Surgical Oncologists in Canada, we are committed to standing against all discrimination, whether it be based on skin colour, ethnicity, poverty, geography, or differences in language, sexual orientation and gender identity, sexuality, or religion.

We are committed to using our positions as healers and the place of privilege this allows us to enjoy; to listen and learn from all those affected by systemic inequality and to doing better.

CSSO Board of Directors
August 2023

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Dr. Carolyn Nessim

President

Dr. Carolyn Nessim is a Surgical Oncologist at the Ottawa Hospital and Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Ottawa. She is the Program Director for the Complex Surgical Oncology Fellowship Program at the University of Ottawa. She completed her general surgery residency and master’s in biomedical sciences at the University of Montreal and did her Surgical Oncology Fellowships at the University of Toronto and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. Her clinical practice focuses on the treatment of patients with Melanoma, Soft Tissue Sarcoma/GIST, and Gastric cancer.  She is a Clinician Investigator at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI). She leads many collaborative research projects nationally and internationally in melanoma and soft tissue sarcoma. She is the Regional Chair of the Melanoma and Gastric Cancer Communities of Practice for Eastern Ontario and on the Cancer Care Ontario Skin Cancer Advisory Board as well the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Melanoma Measures Panel. She is the Chair of the Research Evaluation Committee of the Trans-Atlantic Australasian Retroperitoneal Sarcoma Working Group (TARPSWG) and a member of the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) Sarcoma Disease site group. She is a section editor for Sarcoma for Annals of Surgical Oncology and a topic editor for Current Oncology. She is the CPD Chair and member of the Board and Executive of the Canadian Association of General Surgeons (CAGS) and is also the Chair of the Surgery and Surveillance working group of the NCIC-Canadian Cancer Trials Group (CCTG). She sits on the Executive of the Canadian Society of Surgical Oncology (CSSO) and the Canadian Gastric Cancer Association (CaGCA). She has more than 60 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters and is the local PI for multi-international randomized clinical trials like the MELMART-2 and STRASS 2 trials at The Ottawa Hospital.

 

Dr. Fayez Quereshy

Past President

Both a local and national award-winning surgeon, Dr. Fayez Quereshy is an academic surgeon-investigator leading a $340 million portfolio that encompasses internationally recognized programs such as the Sprott Department of Surgery, the Ajmera Transplant Centre, and the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, among others in UHN’s acute-care portfolio. Dr. Quereshy is also the Site-Lead of Toronto General Hospital and a practicing Surgical Oncologist within Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, focused on gastrointestinal malignancies and specifically, colorectal cancer. Dr. Quereshy is focused on safety and quality deliverables, for patients, our world-class team of health care professionals, and the system at large.

Dr. Quereshy has been published in more than 100 peer reviewed publications, and been awarded more than $2 million dollars in grants.  

Dr. Quereshy completed his residency training in general surgery, and his fellowship in surgical oncology at the University of Toronto. He received his master’s degree in business administration (MBA) at the Rotman School of Management. He subsequently pursued advanced robotic colorectal fellowship training at the Queen Mary Hospital, University of Hong Kong. His academic interests center on operations management and systems efficiency, with the aim of improving cost effectiveness and quality of care. Dr. Quereshy is an associate professor in the Department of Surgery and at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

 

Dr. Ari Meguerditchian

President Elect/Vice-President

Dr. Ari Meguerditchian is an Associate Professor of Surgery and Oncology at McGill University and has been appointed by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada as Vice-Chair of the Speciality Committee in Surgical Oncology.. He completed medical training at the University of Montreal, where he also received a Masters degree in Biomedical Sciences. After a General Surgery residency at Laval University (Quebec City), he pursued post-doctoral research and Surgical Oncology fellowships at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (Buffalo, NY). Dr Meguerditchian currently serves as surgical oncologist and health services researcher at the McGill University Health Centre. His research has received support from the Fonds de la Recherche en Santé du Québec, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute. Dr. Meguerditchian focuses on cancer care quality, integration of health informatics resources in clinical practice and the interaction between competency assessment and patient outcomes. He has served as the Director of Undergraduate Surgical Education at the Royal Victoria Hospital (2010-2013) and was the Program Director of the Surgical Oncology Fellowship at McGill University until 2014. During his tenure, the program achieved full accreditation by both the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons and the American Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).. As a Program Lead of the Rossy Cancer Network since 2014, Dr. Meguerditchian has established an ambitious research and skills enhancement program in the field of cancer care quality. He is a member of the Comité d’évolution des pratiques en oncolgie (Institut national d’excellence en santé et services sociaux - Québec) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology cancer care quality committee. Dr. Meguerditchian has received the Canadian Association for Medical Education (CAME) Certificate of Merit for excellence in medical education and the David Owen Undergraduate Teaching Award from the Division of General Surgery, (McGill University). In 2015, he received the Bronfman Award for Teaching and Mentorship from the Department of Oncology (McGill University).

 

Decision Pending

Secretary-Treasurer

Biography to come.

 

Dr. Shaila Merchant

Director of Education

Dr. Shaila Merchant is a fellowship-trained surgical oncologist with clinical areas of interest in gastrointestinal (gastric, small bowel, colorectal, anal) and breast cancers. She works as part of a multi-disciplinary team to provide thoughtful and high-quality cancer care to patients with complex cancer needs. Dr. Merchant completed medical school and General Surgery residency training at the University of British Columbia. She then went to Southern California to complete an accredited two-year fellowship in Complex Surgical Oncology. She holds certifications in General Surgery and Surgical Oncology in Canada (Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada) and the United States (American Board of Surgery). Dr. Merchant is involved in Health Services Research and has graduate degrees in basic science and clinical epidemiology and statistics. Her research is focused on compassionate care at the end-of-life, potentially aggressive end-of-life care, palliative care, increasing psychosocial support and improving patient-physician communication for patients with cancer. She has published extensively in the scientific literature and has been invited to give presentations at national and international venues. She also serves on several national and international cancer committees.

 

Dr. Sinziana Dumitra

Co-Director of Education

Dr. Sinziana Dumitra is a Surgical Oncologist at the McGill University Health Center and the Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital as well as associate member to the McGill University Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health since 2018. Her practice and research interest focus on sarcoma and melanoma, After finishing her medical school at Universite de Montreal, she completed her residency training at McGill University along with a Masters degree in Epidemiology. She pursued fellowship training in Surgical Oncology at City of Hope in California as well as in Milan, Italy. Dr Dumitra is involved in research as well as in education in both the General Surgery and Surgical Oncology programs of the Department of Surgery at McGill University.

 

Dr. Trevor Hamilton

Director of Research

Dr. Trevor Hamilton completed his medical school at Dalhousie University in Halifax, NS and General Surgery training at the University of Calgary. Following this, he completed a fellowship in Surgical Oncology at the University of Toronto and an international fellowship at Severance Hospital/Yonsei Cancer Center in Seoul, Korea for advanced training in minimally invasive gastric cancer surgery. He has also completed a Master’s of Science in Clinical Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, MA. His clinical interest is in advanced gastrointestinal cancers, peritoneal surface malignancies and soft tissue sarcoma. He is appointed as a Clinical Assistant Professor at UBC with privileges at Vancouver General Hospital and BC Cancer. He is also the newly appointed Program Director for the Complex General Surgical Oncology Fellowship at UBC starting in 2018.

 

Dr. Evan Jost

Co-Director of Research

Dr. Evan Jost is a Surgical Oncologist at the University Hospital of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, BC. He completed medical school, residency, and fellowship at University of Calgary and his Master’s degree at Johns Hopkins University. His research interests include geographic determinants of health and the use of emerging geographic analysis technologies to evaluate these factors. His clinical interests include cutaneous, breast, and advanced gastrointestinal oncology. He is passionate about resident and medical student education, and is involved in teaching at UBC medical school..

 

Dr. Julie Hallet

Director of Media and Communications

Dr. Hallet is an Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto and a Surgical Oncologist with a clinical practice devoted to hepato-biliary, pancreatic and upper gastrointestinal malignancies at the Odette Cancer Centre - Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Her practice further focuses on minimally invasive therapies, as well as neuroendocrine tumors as part of the Susan Leslie Multidisciplinary Clinic for Neuroendocrine Tumors. She completed general surgery residency and MSc in clinical epidemiology at Université Laval in Québec City, followed by a Surgical Oncology and hepato-pancreatico-biliary fellowship at the University of Toronto, and additional training in advanced minimally invasive and robotic surgery at the Institut de recherche contre les cancers de l’appareil digestif (IRCAD) in Strasbourg, France.

Dr. Hallet holds leadership roles in National and International societies. Among those roles, she serves as the Vice-Chair of the Hepato-Pancreatico-Biliary Disease Site Group of the Society of Surgical Oncology, the Chair of the Early Career Group the International Hepato-Pancreatico-Biliary Association, and a member of the Guidelines Committee of the North American Neuroendocrine Tumors Society. She is a founding member and sits on the board of directors of the Society of Surgical Ergonomics for which she also co-chairs the Research and Applied Ergonomics Committee. She also serves as Associate Section Editor for the Annals of Surgical Oncology, and is part of the Editorial Board of HPB, the World Journal of Surgery, and the British Journal of Surgery.

Dr. Hallet’s research focuses on health services research to examine processes of care and outcomes in oncology, as well as the utilization of pre-operative 3D imaging to improve outcomes of hepato-pancreatico-biliary malignancies. To support her research, she has received over 5 million dollars in operating grants, including from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Ontario Institute of Cancer Research, and prior early career investigator awards from the Society of Surgery of the Alimentary Tract and the North-American Neuroendocrine Tumors Society. Dr. Hallet has over 180 peer-reviewed publications, including many high-impact papers in JAMA Surgery, JAMA Oncology, the Journal of the NCCN, and Annals of Surgery.

 
 

Dr. Alexandra Easson

Member at Large

Dr. Easson is an academic general surgical oncologist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, in Toronto, Canada and an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Toronto. She graduated from medical school at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada and completed her General Surgery Residency at the University of Ottawa. She spent 2 years as a Research Fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and completed a Clinical Fellowship in Surgical Oncology at the University of Toronto. She has an MSc in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Toronto. She manages a busy clinical practice in the management of breast, melanoma, colorectal and anal malignancies. Her research interests include the study of optical imaging as a diagnostic tool in breast cancer.

 

Dr. Brittany Dingley

Member at Large

Dr. Brittany Dingley worked as a Surgical Oncologist as Faculty at Memorial University in St-John’s, Newfoundland and now is currently a Surgical Oncologist at The Ottawa Hospital and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa. Her clinical practice focuses on Melanoma and other Skin Cancers as well as Peritoneal Malignancies and Palliative Surgery. She completed her residency in General Surgery at the University of Calgary and has a Masters in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. Her research interests include evaluating the environmental impact on the causation of cancer, evaluation of decision making for clinicians and patients in the domains of palliative and peritoneal surgery. She did her fellowship in Surgical Oncology at the University of Ottawa. She is currently creating a palliative surgery program at The Ottawa Hospital with a palliative tumour board and eventually a Palliative Communities of Practice to improve the quality of care of cancer patients at the end of life, to allow pre-emptive discussions about the benefits of potential surgical palliation She is the educational site lead at the General Campus and the Wellness representative for the Surgical Oncology Fellows.

 

Dr. Richard Spence

Member at Large

Dr. Richard Spence is an assistant Professor in Minimally Invasive Surgery and Surgical Oncology in the Division of General Surgery in Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. Dr Spence completed General Surgery training at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and a MPhil in Public Health at Cambridge University, UK, prior to fellowship training in advanced GI minimally invasive surgery at Dalhousie University and complex general surgical oncology at University of Toronto. His surgical oncology practice focuses on gastrointestinal and adrenal tumors. His research interests focus on standardizing reporting of surgical outcomes with the vision to provide global benchmarking platforms and quality improvement initiatives, specifically, in the fascinating and progressive fields of bariatric surgery and gastrointestinal malignancies. Dr Spence also has a passion for delivering on patient-centered outcomes research and trying to measure surgical outcomes, which matter most to his patient by actively engaging them in his research. He is an associate of the Beatrice Hunter Cancer Research Institute and also has a keen interest in global surgery and global oncology as an active participant of both the Dalhousie Global Surgery Office and the NIH-funded collaborative GlobalSurg.

 

Dr. Allison MacIver

Member at Large

Dr. Allison MacIver is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Surgery and Oncology at Western University. Dr. MacIver completed her General Surgery residency at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, as well as a Masters of Science in Experimental Surgery through the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Clinician Investigator Program.  Dr. MacIver went on to complete a Fellowship in Complex General Surgical Oncology at Roswell Park, in Buffalo, NY.  

Dr. MacIver is the current Fellowship Director of the Breast Surgical Oncology Fellowship at Western.

Her research interests include knowledge translation and patient outcomes in breast, melanoma, sarcoma and gastric cancer, and access to quality care in appendiceal and peritoneal malignancies.


 

Dr. Valerie Francescutti

CanSOR Director

Dr. Francescutti is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery, Division of General Surgery at McMaster University. She is a Surgical Oncology based at the Hamilton General Hospital and Juravinski Cancer Center. She completed her undergraduate degree with honours at the University of Toronto, followed by her MD and her General Surgery Residency at McMaster University. Dr. Francescutti then completed her Surgical Oncology Fellowship at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo NY. During fellowship, she began her studies towards her Master’s Degree in Health Research Methodology at McMaster, completing her thesis focusing on knowledge translation and barriers to referral for major surgical oncology procedures, using the cytoreduction and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy procedure as a model. Following fellowship, Dr. Francescutti was recruited as an Assistant Professor of Surgery and Oncology at Roswell Park where she worked for 6 years, with clinical practice focusing on melanoma and other skin malignancies, sarcoma, and peritoneal based malignancies such as pseudomyxoma peritonei and appendix cancers for which CS/HIPEC is offered. During her time at Roswell Park she was the Assistant Program Director and subsequently the Program Director for the Complex General Surgical Oncology fellowship program. In 2018 Dr. Francescutti returned to McMaster University, as an Associate Professor of Surgery in the Division of General Surgery. She is a member of the Skin and Sarcoma disease site teams at the Juravinski Cancer Center. Her research focuses on knowledge translation and clinical outcomes. She is currently the undergraduate and post-graduate clinical teaching unit director for surgery at Hamilton General Hospital, and is the Head of Service for Surgical Oncology for Hamilton Health Sciences.Dr. Valerie Francescutti

 

Dr. Megan Delisle

CanSOR Co-Director

Dr. Megan Delisle is an Assistant professor in the Department of Surgery in the Max Rady College of Medicine at the University of Manitoba. Her primary research focus is advancing precision oncology in the real-world environment. She aims to use these findings to effectively and safely mitigate both the excessive and inadequate utilization of healthcare throughout the entire cancer control continuum, from prevention to end-of-life care and survivorship. Her methodological expertise is in pragmatic clinical trials, implementation science and health services research. I combine these methodological approaches to develop innovative methods of designing and conducting research and facilitate the seamless translation of research findings into real-world practice.

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Past Presidents

Please meet the past presidents of the CSSO:

2022-2023 Jason Park | 2020-2022 ALex Mathieson | 2019-2020 Andrew McKay | 2018-19  lucy helyer | 2017-18  Lloyd Mack | 2016-17  Alok Pathok | 2015-16  Jay Engel | 2014-15  Andy McFadden | 2013-14  Steve Latosinsky | 2012-13  Oliver Bathe | 2011-12  Rona Cheifetz | 2010-11  Carol Swallow | 2009-10  Carman Giacomantonio | 2007-09  Sarkis Meterissian | 2005-07  Rick Nason | 2003-05  Noelle Davis | 2001-03  Greg McKinnon | 1999-01  David McCready | 1997-99  Audley Bodurtha | 1995-97  Hartley Stern | 1993-95  John MacFarlane | 1991-93  Walley Temple | 1990-91  Wayne Beecroft (died in 1991) | 1988-90  Henry Shibata