Rotation Descriptions | Department of Surgery | School of Medicine

CTU 1: Colorectal


Dr. Ameer Farooq	Dr. Hugh MacDonald	Dr. Sunil Patel

Our colorectal service has three surgeons on staff. We are a national leader in robotic and advanced minimally invasive colorectal surgery. We provide care to patients with colorectal cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, diverticular disease and anorectal disease. A typical week includes two days of clinics, two or three days of endoscopy, three days of OR and dedicated teaching. Our OR’s include robotic surgery (2 days per week), high efficiency anorectal surgery (2 days per month), and non-robotic major surgery (2 days per month). The dedicated teaching sessions include video review, didactic teaching, multidisciplinary teaching (with Gastroenterology) and Quality Improvement Rounds. In addition, we encourage those rotating on our service to participate in research with our group, including quality improvement research, population health research, clinical trials and meta-analyses/systematic reviews.

CTU 2: Hepato-pancreato-biliary


Dr. Sean Bennett	Dr. Diederick Jalink	Dr. Sulaiman Nanji

Our Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary service has three surgeons on staff. A typical week has 2-3 OR days at either Kingston General Hospital or Hotel Dieu. ORs at KGH are typically complex oncologic procedures including pancreatic resections, major and minor liver resections, as well as procedures on the stomach, GI tract, and spleen. ORs at Hotel Dieu are typically ambulatory procedures such as cholecystectomies, hernia repairs, diagnostic laparoscopies, etc. Two of our surgeons are transplant trained and participate in organ retrieval and kidney transplants. The other has additional training in surgical oncology. In addition to the patient care activities on the ward, OR, and clinic, we participate in weekly Multidiscplinary Cancer Conferences – one focused on all GI malignancies, and another with a specific focus on hepatic cancers. Weekly HPB-specific rounds are conducted where we review the upcoming operative cases of the week and have targeted teaching around topics relevant to those cases or to the post-operative management of our inpatients.

CTU 3: Surgical Oncology & Pediatrics


Dr. Jay Engel	Dr. Shaila Merchant	Dr. G. Ross Walker

We have three surgical oncologists who cover the broad spectrum of surgical oncology practice. Dr. Walker’s practice is dedicated to head/neck and breast, Dr. Engel’s to breast, melanoma, sarcoma, and Dr. Merchant’s to breast and gastrointestinal cancers. Our team works closely with medical and radiation oncology, pathology, radiology, plastic surgery, geriatric medicine and palliative care to provide comprehensive care to patients with complex cancer needs. There are disease-specific tumor boards where the multidisciplinary team meets to discuss complex cancer cases. All three surgeons have significant administrative, research and teaching responsibilities.


Dr. Mila Kolar	Dr. Andrea Winthrop

Our Pediatric Surgery service has two staff surgeons, Dr. Winthrop and Dr. Kolar. We are the regional academic tertiary care Pediatric center. We are the only training center in Canada that has longitudinal pediatric surgery resident exposure across all years of surgical residency training. There is at least one pediatric surgery OR per week, as well as one full clinic day. Dr. Winthrop & Dr. Kolar are also very involved in medical education, both taking on significant roles within the MD program.

CTU 4: ACS, Trauma & POCUS

Our ACS & Trauma team is spearheaded by a different on-call surgeon every week. All consults go to this team during the day and overnight. Residents stay on the service for at least a block’s duration. Our junior resident carries the trauma pager, allowing for early exposure to trauma and practice performing FAST scans, as this is the junior resident’s responsibility for every trauma at our center. We are also incorporating a formal POCUS course for our PGY1 residents. Our senior residents participate in Trauma Team Captain (TTC) call either during the daytime or overnight, and as such gain valuable experience on how to manage traumas from a leadership perspective. This set up allows for longitudinal exposure for trauma throughout training for all our residents.

CTU 5: Endoscopy

Our Endoscopy service has no formal inpatients. We typically have a designated endoscopy resident every block. These are typically PGY1 & PGY2 residents, who each are assigned a block of endoscopy each year. Since we have such early endoscopy exposure, we send our PGY1 residents to the yearly endoscopy bootcamp at Western University to allow them to gain skills early in their training. We also have an endoscopy simulator in the medical school building across the street from Kingston General Hospital – our residents have access to this at any time. CTUs 1, 2, 3, and 6 all have scoping days. Our endoscopy resident gets priority for which scoping days they attend, choosing these at the beginning of the block, allowing for significant volume within the month, and maximal exposure. We intentionally have no endoscopies on Wednesday to allow for our residents to attend their academic half day and/or surgical foundations as necessary without missing out on endscopy exposure. All our residents (even when not on an endoscopy block) receive longitudinal exposure as any uncovered scoping days can be picked up by any resident if they do not have other clinical duties that day.

CTU 6: Bariatric, Upper GI & Hernia


Dr. David Robertson	Dr. Peter Szasz	Dr. Boris Zevin

Our Bariatrics & Hernia service has three surgeons on staff. Dr. Szasz has a diverse practice composed of bariatric surgery & herniorrhapy. He also has a keen interest in education research and medical education. Dr. Zevin’s practice is focused on metabolic bariatric surgery and benign diseases of upper GI tract (hiatus hernia, GERD). He is also heavily involved in medical education research. Dr. Robertson has a bariatric and complex hernia practice and is also affiliated with one of our local community hospitals in Napanee. As such, residents rotating through this CTU gain excellent exposure to laparoscopic skills, approaches to complex hernias, and also get to experience some community surgery.