Alumni Corner
A. K. PRAKASH EXTENDS THE GLOBAL REACH OF OUR DEPARTMENT
Faith Muchemwa
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Through the support of one of the Department of
Surgery’s newest donors, four surgeons from developing
countries will be provided with opportunity for surgical
training at the University of Toronto. With assistance
from the recently established A. K. Prakash Foundation
Fellowship in International Medicine, surgeons will get a
chance to specialize in an area of expertise that is highly
demanded in their home countries.
The most important criterion
of the fellowship is that the surgeons
return to their home country
following completion of the
program. This ensures that learning
is immediately transferred
into the local health care system.
In this first year, surgeons from
Nigeria and Zimbabwe will take
part in the program for a year
and six months, respectively. In
the second year, two surgeons from Ethiopia have already
been identified for six-month stays.
“This experience will enable me to get exposure to many
procedures which are not available for me to learn,” says
Dr. Faith Muchemwa, a plastic surgeon from Zimbabwe.
James Balogun
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Dr. James Balogun, a neurosurgeon
from Nigeria says that
pursuing this opportunity “was
birthed out of a passion to reduce
the neurosurgical disease burden
and improve survival in children
with brain and spine diseases.
Children constitute about half of
the one hundred and sixty million
population of my country.”
With Mr. Prakash’s $160,000 gift in support of the
Department of Surgery’s Boundless campaign, the
department is creating substantial and immediate impact
across the globe. “There is great inequity around the
world in terms of access to quality health care,” says
Mr. Prakash, a Toronto-based philanthropist and art
enthusiast. “My hope is that my contribution will widen
the scope for quality health education and create longlasting
impact where needed.”
We appreciate the generosity and leadership of Mr.
Prakash in helping to create sustainable access to muchneeded
health care services across the globe.
Darina Landa,
Senior Development Officer
University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine
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Alumni Awards
Congratulations are in order for a former Toronto alumnus,
Susan E. Mackinnon (PlasSurg) who received
the 2013 Jacobson Innovation Award of the American
College of Surgeons last June. This award honors living
surgeons who have developed original and significant
surgical techniques. Dr. MacKinnon received the prestigious
awards because of her leadership in the innovative
use of nerve transfers. She also performed the first
nerve transplant in 1988. Susan joins a list of remarkable
individuals including Harry Buncke, Paul Tessier and
John Burke who have changed the landscape of surgical
practice. After training under Dr. W. K. Lindsay, Dr.
Mackinnon was on staff at Sunnybrook Health Science
Centre for many years before moving to St. Louis where
she is appointed as the Sydney M. Shoenberg Jr. and
Robert H. Shoenberg Endowed Chair and Chief of
the division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at
Washington University School of Medicine.
Former clinical fellow, Brett McClelland (Australia)
(PlasSurg) won a “Young Investigators Award” from the
Transplantation Society at the 11th International Hand
and Composite Tissue Allograft Society (IHCTAS)
meeting held in Wroclaw, Poland, 2013. The title of his
poster was “Proximal forearm amputation. A privileged
site for transplantation?” with co-authors Ronald Zuker,
Steven McCabe, Gregory Borschel.
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