Message from the Department Head | Department of Surgery | School of Medicine

Dr Oluwadamilola “Lola” Fayanju, Department Head

It is my honour to serve as the tenth Department Head of Surgery at Queen’s University and Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC). The affiliation between Queen’s and the hospitals that comprise KHSC – specifically Kingston General Hospital (KGH) – began in 1854, and KGH is the oldest continuously running public hospital in Canada, having opened in 1835. This partnership, which now also includes Hôtel Dieu, reflects the close integration of academic inquiry, clinical innovation, and community engagement that has driven our provision of high-quality surgical care across and beyond southeastern Ontario for nearly 200 years.

Yet, despite the deep roots and long history that tie Queen’s and KHSC to the surrounding community, our ability to appreciate the past has not stopped us from continuously looking towards the future. Our faculty – spanning the divisions of cardiovascular surgery, general surgery, orthopedic surgery, otolaryngology, neurosurgery, plastic surgery, and thoracic surgery – are performing cutting-edge operations that are not only ground-breaking but also – and most importantly – patient-centered. Many of our faculty have advanced degrees and have been awarded grants to support their research from a wide range of societies and organizations including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Importantly, the research being performed is helping us better understand and treat surgical disease within our increasingly diverse community. Robotic surgery at KHSC is now routinely performed and has helped make KHSC a center of excellence for rectal cancer. Multi-disciplinary, minimally invasive heart valve procedures in our new hybrid operating room are allowing patients to receive advanced cardiac care close to home. A newly developed, 3D-printed surgical biopsy capsule enables precise, targeted sampling of aggressive brain tumours, so they can be studied and treated without hurting surrounding structures and compromising function. These innovations both advance the field of surgery and ensure world-class surgical care is available for patients right here in our community.

Surgical education at Queen’s is also at the forefront of innovation and is part of a broader institutional commitment to cultivating the next generation of compassionate, well-trained physicians. We have two residencies, in General Surgery and Orthopedic Surgery, as well as several subspecialty fellowships, with our trainees coming from across Canada and around the world. Our goal is to help new doctors transition smoothly from medical school to residency and to give them a solid footing for the rest of their careers. Early in their training, our residents take part in Surgical Foundations, which prepares junior residents for practice through didactic sessions, lab-based simulations, structured rotations, and a “boot camp” in the first two months of their very first year. Surgery residents at Queen’s transition quickly into senior roles and gain high patient and operative responsibility early in their training, building competence over time through iterative exposure to both routine and complex cases. Through health fairs and community-based rotations across the region, our trainees interact with and learn from patients hailing from diverse backgrounds and come to understand that equity must be prioritized in the surgical care we provide. Faculty are very invested in the growth of our residents and medical students as both instructors and mentors and have been recognized for their excellence as teachers at the institutional, provincial, and national level.

Here at Queen’s and KHSC, we are grounded in our history, but not confined by it. We have positioned ourselves at the forefront of innovation but we have not let the shiny distract us from the substantive. We take great pride in leading the provision of surgical care for southeastern Ontario, a charge we embrace with humility, skill, and a commitment to treating every patient like a member of our own families….and I take great pride in working with this remarkable group of people.

Oluwadamilola “Lola” Fayanju, MD
Professor
Britton Smith Chair in Surgery
Head, Department of Surgery
Queen’s University and Kingston Health Sciences Centre

1 September 2026