Oleg Safir - Skills Lab Update
The D.H. Gales U of T Surgical Skills Centre new
director Oleg Safir plans to continue and extend the
outstanding work of his predecessors and colleagues.
New activities of the lab include the Competency Based
Orthopaedic Curriculum for which Oleg serves as leader
of two of the 21 modules. A typical example is the skills
module that teaches casting, plating and sterile techniques
before the residents enter the operating room.
This was originally offered only to the initial 3 CBC
residents; it has been expanded to all 12 entering orthopaedic
residents in the surgical boot camp (1)(2).
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All orthopaedic surgery CBC residents have to pass
the final bootcamp exam to ensure they are skilled in
basic surgical skills before they reach the operating
room. He would eventually like all surgical residents to
go through this program, though the logistics of this
challenging project remain to be solved. He plans to
work with all of the other skills centres in the city to
bring them together as one program. In addition to the
Mount Sinai Lab, there are skills labs at St. Michael’s in
the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Centre, Toronto Western
Hospital, Sunnybrook, the Hospital for Sick Children
and Women’s College Hospital.
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Oleg’s thesis research was on self-directed learning
compared with other modes of learning. He then applied
this information to the boot camp, comparing boot
camp candidates on the self-directed path with those on
a directed path of learning (3).
Oleg received his MD degree in the Ukraine, completed
surgical residency in Israel and served in the military there.
He was a fellow with Allan Gross and David Backstein,
before joining the staff at Mount Sinai. He enjoys working
"with these world leaders in complex lower extremity reconstruction
and revision arthroplasty operations."
Oleg’s wife Maria was an orthopedic surgeon in the
Ukraine. She completed a family practice residency in
London, Ontario while the family commuted by train
to be together. They are now reunited and have two
children Max and their youngest 4 months old Denis.
M.M.
(1) Sonnadara R, Rittenhouse N, Khan A, Mihailidis A,
Drozdzal G, Safir O, Leung SO. A novel multimodal
platform for assessing surgical skills. Am J Surg. 2012 Jan;
203(1):32-6. Epub 2011 Nov 8.
(2) Sonnadara RR, Garbedian S, Safir O, Nousiainen M,
Alman B, Ferguson P, Kraemer W, Reznick R. Orthopaedic
Boot Camp II: examining the retention rates of an intensive
skills course. Surgery. 2012 Jun; 151(6):803-7.
(3) Safir O, Dubrowski A, Hui Y, Backstein D, Carnahan D.-Social
and Behavioral Sciences. Self-directed Practice Scheduling is
Equivalent to Instructor Guided Practice when Learning a
Complex Surgical Skill. Procedia: 2010: 2(2):792-6
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