A Coordinated City-wide Hand Surgery Program
Steven McCabe
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The new Director of the
University Hand Program,
Steven McCabe, grew
up in Dresden, Ontario.
He attended school and
played hockey there
until he entered Western
Ontario University, where
he completed two years of
a biological sciences honours
degree. He graduated
from the University of
Toronto medical school
in 1980.
He was inspired to enter a surgical career because of the
technical, visual, and mechanical aspects of the specialty.
His leaders and mentors include Dr. Robert McFarlane
from London, and Dr’s Ross Douglas, W.R.N. Lindsay,
and Joseph Gruss. He worked with Dr. Gruss, Jim
Murray, and Susan MacKinnon at Sunnybrook. Ralph
Manktelow sent him to McMaster, where he was taught
by the renowned epidemiology and statistics team of
Sackett, Guyatt, Steiner and Norman. This important
experience has had a steering effect on his career,
especially his focus on decision analysis, learned in
Allan Detsky’s decision class, and at the University of
Louisville in Kentucky, where he subsequently taught a
decision analysis course in the School of Public Health.
During 20 years in Louisville he had a thriving practice
and an evolving interest in hand transplantation
and microsurgery. Recently he spent a semester in Italy
teaching research methods in Sienna on a Fulbright
scholarship.
He has enjoyed reunion with his friends and surgical
colleagues in Toronto. “In a city of 3 million people,
it is remarkable to have one hospital called the Hand
Centre. A highly desirable plan would be to develop a
coordinated system of hand and upper extremity surgery
with the many excellent surgeons in the city. There are
approximately 23 hand and upper extremity surgeons
who may join the program, using telemedicine, citywide
rounds and a collaborative model.”
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The second major thrust for the future is to join
with David Grant, Ron Zuker, Stefan Hofer, and Ralph
Gilbert, the new Chair of ENT Surgery, and the transplant
physicians to develop a vascularized composite
tissue transplantation program. Gilbert was McCabe’s
classmate and goalie for their medical student hockey
team. Rod Davey, also a classmate and his current
Surgeon-in-Chief at Toronto Western Hospital, was a
former roommate and a member of his wedding party.
 Hand Program Staff:
Back row from left to right: Brent Graham, Herb Von Schroeder, Lorna
Aitkens, Dimitri Anastakis, Brett McClelland, Steven McCabe, Tola Afolabi.
Front row left to right: Maha Nagarajan, Kauser Tarbhai, Lonita Mak, Mary
Chang, Marianne Williams, Andrea Rabiewsky, Maryann Dow.
When he was studying hand transplant surgery in
Louisville, he followed Maria Siemionow (http://www.surgicalspotlight. ca/Article.aspx?ver=Fall_2010&f=Main)
who was working on a laboratory model that allowed in-vivo microscopic examination of the circulation in the
living animal. He participated with Siemionow in the
first hand transplant in the United States. His research
has focused on decision making, carpal tunnel syndrome,
and upper extremity utility analysis. With others,
he is working with the Trillium Gift of Life Network
to co-ordinate upper extremity transplantation for the
province. “The provincial program will bring together
the excellent microsurgery resource pioneered by Ralph
Manktelow with the expertise that exists in transplantation
of organs, and a noble goal. Provincial support
gives us a funnel for allocating resources and testing new
approaches to care.”
M.M.
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