Gallie-Bateman & McMurrich Research Day 2009

Oscar Traynor

The Department of Surgery staff, residents and students highlighted their impressive level of research productivity in all areas of surgical specialties, clinical epidemiology and education at this year's Gallie Day. The theme for this year's Gallie Day was surgical education. The day included a symposium entitled "'Competent Cutting': From Concept to Implementation of Competency- Based Education and Training (CBET)". Symposium Chair was J. Ted Gerstle (Program Director, Division of Paediatric and Thoracic Surgery, Hospital for Sick Children/University of Toronto). Participants included Richard Reznick (Chair, Department of Surgery), Jason Frank (Associate Director, Specialty Standards, Policy & Development, Office of Education, RCPSC), and William Kraemer (Program Director, Division of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Toronto). They gave persuasive talks on the new potential role of competencybased training in surgery, the perspective of the RCPSC, and development and implementation of a competencybased curriculum in orthopaedic surgery.

The Gordon Murray Lecturer, Oscar Traynor, Director of Education at the Royal College of Ireland Department of Surgical Training gave a captivating lecture entitled, "Surgeons are born, not made. Right".

There were 10 platform presentations and 50 poster presentations from trainees who were members of the Surgeon Scientist Program or non-residents training in research with our departmental faculty members. The Gallie-Bateman Awards (for Surgeon Scientist Program participants), the McMurrich Awards and the Wyeth Awards (for any trainee working with a member of the faculty of surgery) were judged for both platform presentations and poster presentations. The wide range of the topics and types of trainees highlighted the diverse high quality research being conducted in our department. There was a much larger than usual attendance - for much of the day there was a standing room only crowd.

Paul Kongkham and Ben Alman

Adrian W. Laxton and Ben Alman

The Gallie-Bateman Award for best work by a trainee in the Surgeon Scientist Program went to Paul Kongkham- "A combined epigenetic and genetic genome-wide screen identifies SPINT2 as a novel tumour suppressor gene in medulloblastoma" (Supervisor: James T. Rutka), 2nd prize to Adrian W. Laxton - "Single neurons in the human subgenual cingulated differentiate emotion categories" (Supervisor: Andres M. Lozano), and 3rd prize to Kristen Davidge - "Function and health status following soft tissue reconstruction for limb preservation in extremity soft tissue sarcoma" (Supervisors: Jay S. Wunder and Aileen Davis).

Kristen Davidge and Ben Alman

Carla Rosario, Ben Alman & Alvin C. Lin

There was a tie for first place for the McMurrich Award, given for the best fundamental science work by any level trainee working with a member of our department. This went to Carla Rosario - "The tumour suppressor Plk4 regulates cell motility and cytokinesis via RhoA-dependent remodeling of the actin cytoskeleton" (Supervisor: Carol Swallow), and Alvin C. Lin - "Modulating hedgehog signaling can attenuate the severity of osteoarthritis" (Supervisor: Benjamin A. Alman). Second place was awarded to Louisa Ho - "Genetic events involved in the progression of enchondroma to chondrosarcoma" (Supervisors: Jay S. Wunder & Benjamin A. Alman). There was a two way tie for third place: Phedias Diamandis - "Heterogeneous and equilibrating lineage primed states coordinate asynchronous gene activation in neural stem cells pools" (Supervisor: Peter B. Dirks); and András Masszi - "Interplay between myocardin-related transcription factor and SMAD3: A critical checkpoint during epithelial-myofibroblast transition" (Supervisor: András Kapus).

Louisa Ho and Ben Alman

Phedias Diamandis & Ben Alman

The Wyeth Awards for best clinical epidemiology or education-based research poster was awarded to Jaskarndip Chahal - "Generalization ligamentous laxity as a predisposing factor for primary anterior shoulder dislocation" (Supervisor: Daniel B. Whelan); and Syndie Singer - "Ankle arthroplasty and ankle arthrodesis - A prospective gain analysis" (Supervisor: Timothy Daniels).

Jaskarndip Chahal and Ben Alman

Sevan Hopyan with Bernard Langer

Faculty research awards went to Sevan Hopyan (Bernard Langer Surgeon Scientist Award, awarded to an outstanding graduate of the Surgeon Scientist Program in the Department, who shows the greatest promise for a career in academic surgery), Robert Nam (George-Armstrong Peters Prize, awarded to a young investigator who has shown outstanding productivity during his initial period as an independent investigator as evidenced by research publications in peer reviewed journals, grants held, and students trained), Glenn Regehr (Charles Tator Surgeon Scientist Mentoring Award, to recognize an individual supervising participants in the SSP who emulate Professor Tator's qualities, namely excellence in research, commitment to SSP mentoring and dedication to promotion of Surgeon- Scientists) and Abhijit Guha (Lister Prize, awarded to an investigator who has shown outstanding and continuing productivity of international stature as evidenced by research publications, grants held, students trained and other evidence of stature of the work produced).

Robert Nam and Robin Richards

Jim Rutka, Abhijit Guha and Richard Reznick

Calvin Law and Ron Levine

Mike Wiley and David Latter

Calvin Law won the Tovee Prize for excellence in postgraduate teaching and Yaron Shargall the same for undergraduate education. Melise Keays received the D.R. Wilson Award for teaching by a surgical resident, Paul Binhammer won the Surgical Skills Centre Distinguished Educator Award and Marcelo Cypel received the inaugural Zane Cohen Clinical Fellowship Achievement Award. Zane Cohen was honoured for his contribution as Chair of the Division of General Surgery, and Michael Wiley as Chair of the Division of Anatomy for the last ten years.

Helen MacRae & Paul Binhammer

Marcelo Cypel and Zane Cohen

Melise Keays and D.R. Wilson

Bryce Taylor, Zane Cohen & Bernard Langer

Thanks to all the judges for the poster competition as well as the oral presentations. Thanks to the Session hosts, Cindi Morshead and Ian McGilvray. Thanks again this year to Andrea McCart, David Urbach and Val Cabral for their dedicated organization of the Day.

Val Cabral
Research Program Coordinator,
Department of Surgery Research Office

Yaron Shargall and David Backstein

Sylvia Perry, Richard Reznick, Val Cabral