Cold Steel: Canadian Journal of Surgery Podcast

In honor of National Nursing Week in Canada, which is May 11th to May 17th, we are re-releasing an early episode with Lauren Kiwan, nurse clinician for general surgery at the Foothills Medical Centre. Lauren shares what surgeons can do to improve the OR. 
Revisit this important episode with us.

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Lauren Kirwan is the nurse clinician for general surgery at the Foothills Medical Centre. She is currently finishing up her nurse practitioner degree. 

We wanted to ask Lauren her thoughts about what it means to be an OR nurse and what she wi...

I have a confession to make. I kind of felt that to talk about money or to be really into financial planning was akin to being the Wolf of Wall Street, where the only real principle was how much money I could make. After this week’s conversation with Dr. Mark Soth, I think of financial planning in a completely different way. In fact, I would argue that Dr. Soth provided on this episode some of the best advice on how to live in a truly fulfilling way.

Dr. Soth is an intensivist at McMaster University. He ha...

While we hope that none of  us “botch a surgery”, medico-legal concerns are issues that affect most surgeons at some point in their careers. Previously on the podcast, Dr. Richard Mimeault and Liise Honey spoke to us about the landscape of medico-legal concerns in surgery, and the anatomy of a lawsuit. In this episode, we talk about the CMPA's innovative approach to try to prevent errors from happening in the first place. Richard Mimeault and Elisabeth Normand join us to talk about "Theatre Arts", a workshop developed by the CMPA to help OR teams improve the quality of the care...

Dr. Varun Kapila is a vascular surgeon in Brampton, Ontario. He is the author of “Six Lessons for Everyday Leadership: From the Operating Room Into Everyday Life, What Surgery Taught Me About Leadership That Can Be Applied by Everyone”. In this episode we delve into Dr. Kapila’s thoughts on leadership and why everyone can be a leader in their own lives.

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For a newly graduated surgical resident, one of the most interesting and perplexing question that many folks have to deal with is a surprisingly simple one: what should a full-time surgical job look like? For many of us, we simply looked at what our predecessors job looked like, and modeled our own careers after them. This meant ensuring that our schedules were jam-packed with clinical activities every day, without much consideration for other aspects of our career (such as call and research, for example).

At the beginning of March, the American College of Surgeons released a framework...

Paul Fedak is a cardiac surgeon and translational scientist at the University of Calgary. He has written and spoken about what it means to pursue excellence and what it might cost us. Dr. Fedak unexpectedly had to cut short his clinical career as a surgeon due to spinal cord issues. The result has been a powerful exploration about identity, meaning, burnout and the pursuit of excellence. This is a conversation about that pursuit.

Bio: https://profiles.ucalgary.ca/paul-fedak 

Links:

It's that time of year again. Can you sense it? The anticipation, the anxiety, the dread, the wracking of heart and head? Yes, it's almost time for final year Canadian medical students across the country to submit their rank lists to CaRMS.

On this episode we explore the history of CaRMS and the underlying matching algorithms.

We then talk about some of our top tips when building your CaRMS rank list.

What do you think? How did you make your rank list? Send us an email at podcast.cjs@gmail.com.

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This Evidence Based Reviews in Surgery (EBRS) webinar was filmed November 2025. This webinar was moderated by Dr. Alison Laws and Dr. Ameer Farooq, and featured panelists Dr. Nicole Culos-Reed, Dr. Christopher Booth and Dr. Bishal Gyawali.

In this EBRS webinar, we discussed Structured Exercise after Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Colon Cancer (Courneya et al., 2025).

Links:

This Evidence Based Reviews in Surgery (EBRS) webinar was filmed May 2025. This webinar was moderated by Dr. Alison Laws and Dr. Kerollos Wanis, and featured panelists Dr. Stephanie Wong, Dr. Sarah Knowles and Dr. Rebecca Warburton.

In this EBRS webinar, we discussed Axillary Surgery in Breast Cancer--Primary Results of the INSEMA Trial (Reimer et al., 2024) & Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy vs No Axillary Surgery in Patients With Small Breast Cancer and Negative Results on Ultrasonography of Axillary Lymph Nodes (Gentilini et al., 2023).

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This Evidence Based Reviews in Surgery (EBRS) webinar was filmed July 2025. This webinar was moderated by Dr. Kelly Vogt and Dr. Chad Ball, and featured panelists Dr. Bourke Tillmann and Dr. Emilie Joos.

In this EBRS webinar, we discussed Getting out of the bay faster: Assessing trauma team performance using trauma video review" (Maiga et al., 2024).

Links:

This Evidence Based Reviews in Surgery (EBRS) webinar was filmed January 2022, in collaboration with UNITAR. This webinar was moderated by Dr. Chad Ball and Dr. Neel Detta, and featured panelists Dr. Keith Lillemoe, Dr. Majella Doyle and Dr. Jeff Barkun.

In this EBRS webinar, we discussed Safe Cholecystectomy Multi-society Practice Guideline and State of the Art Consensus Conference on Prevention of Bile Duct Injury During Cholecystectomy (Brunt et al., 2020).

Links:

This Evidence Based Reviews in Surgery (EBRS) webinar was filmed February 2025. This webinar was moderated by Dr. Kelly Vogt and Dr. Chad Ball, and featured panelists Dr. James Byrne, Dr. Kimberly Bertens and Dr. Sean Gregg.

In this EBRS webinar, we discussed Restrictive Strategy vs Usual Care for Cholecystectomy in Patients with Abdominal Pain and Gallstones: 5-Year Follow-Up of the SECURE Randomized Clinical Trial (Comes et al., 2024).

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The William Ersil Research day invited guest and moderator for 2025 was Dr. Krista Goulding. 

Dr. Goulding is an Orthopedic Surgeon at Mayo Clinic Arizona, where she specializes in caring for patients with sarcomas and other cancerous and non-cancerous tumors of the musculoskeletal system.

 Dr. Goulding’s expertise is in limb preservation surgery using innovative techniques (synthetic and bone transplants, 3D printed and patient-specific implants, joint replacement). Her goal is to cure cancer while preserving function and quality of life. She is involved in research on a national and international scale, and is currently researching ways to i...

Surgery has never been more complicated. The variety of surgical approaches and the complexity of treatment continue to grow exponentially, yet in many institutions, surgical training has not really changed. Dr. Adnan Alseidi, our guest for this episode, is trying to change that. 

Dr. Adnan Alseidi is a liver and pancreas surgeon at UCSF and is the associate dean of assessment, improvement, and accreditation. He recently gave the Langer lecture at the Canadian Surgical Forum in Montreal this year about surgical education and the path from novice to master. This episode was really a moment for us t...

Dr. Teresa Purzner MD PhD FRCSC is a clinician scientist neurosurgeon with a special interest in neuroncology and general neurosurgery.  She completed her residency training at the University of Toronto, and her PhD training at Stanford University.  Her lab, run jointly with her husband Dr. James Purzner, is focused on interdisciplinary approaches to identifying novel drug targets for brain cancer as well as the translation of promising new drug targets into human-ready therapeutics.  Her work has led to the identification of a critical new drug target in the brain tumor medulloblastoma – a discovery that she has since translated into a nov...

Dr. Patrick Murphy is a trauma and acute care surgeon at Medical College of Wisconsin. In this episode we discuss his recent paper, “Understaffed and overworked: The stark reality of acute care surgeon staffing in the United States, an Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma multicenter study.” This conversation turned into more than just a discussion around workforce planning, but also around how surgeons are compensated and surgical culture.

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Dr. Brian Cameron is a retired pediatric surgeon who has spent much of his life dedicated to global surgery. In this conversation, we discuss his new book Ripples from the Rupununi: Dr. Aidun’s Healing Journey. We talk about what it takes to write a book and also discuss the book itself. 

Let us know in the comments or via email: Have you ever thought about writing a book? 

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Dr. Michael Leveridge is a urologist at Queen’s University. He specializes in urologic oncology and is the editor in chief of the Canadian Urological Association Journal. We spoke to him about his career, his role as editor in chief, and how he creates mental models in his practice. In addition, Dr. Leveridge did a masterclass with us on ureteric injuries. We also watch videos together and get his thoughts on how to avoid these injuries.

Check out the YouTube masterclass here: https://youtu.be/izHOSh38J7U

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Campbell Roxburgh is a consultant colorectal surgeon and Professor of Colorectal Surgical Oncology at University of Glasgow in Scotland. Mr. Roxburgh is a multi-faceted researcher, surgeon and academic. He has a large body of research in systemic inflammation and tumor response, as well as clinical trials. We were lucky enough to have him join us at Queen’s University for a week.  In this talk he gave to the general surgery division, he talked about the development of robotic surgery in Scotland. What stood out for us from his talk was the deliberate, systematic approach to introducing a new tec...

Andrea Merrill is a surgical oncologist in Charlottesville, Virginia. She is the creator of Scrubbed Out, a website dedicated to highlighting the talents and passions of surgeons and trainees outside of the operating room. As listeners will know, Chad and I have been obsessed with exploring how to be the best surgeons we can be without losing our humanity in the process. Dr. Merrill had some really important insights on how we might walk the line between being completely immersed in surgery, but also staying grounded. We also talked about several of her superb pieces of writing, including “Free So...

Dr. Mohammed Bellal is a consultant urologist based out of Birmingham, UK. He specializes in complex functional reconstructive surgery. He’s also the UK’s first paralyzed surgeon. Dr. Bellal has probably one of the most powerful talks we’ve ever heard called “The Gift of Adversity”. During our conversation with him, we explore the power of fate, and how letting go of the outcomes is such a difficult but powerful life lesson we all need to learn. We also delved deeply into how Dr. Bellal has adapted to his paralysis and has come back to practice as a surgeon, a...

In this second episode of our mini-series with the Canadian Medical Protective Association (CMPA), Richard Mimeault and Liisa Honey talk about the “Anatomy of a Lawsuit”. They talk about what you can expect if you are served with a College complaint or a lawsuit, what the process looks like, and how you can psychologically survive through it all.

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It’s hard to describe exactly what Dr. Stephen Foster is. Dr. Foster is a general surgeon, urologist, infectious disease doctor, entrepreneur, and missionary who has spent his career working in Angola. We caught up with Dr. Foster to talk about his life working in Angola and really to explore his thoughts on empowering non-MD providers to provide life-saving care. Dr. Foster has a fascinating biography called “The Benefit of Steel: The Life and Times of Steve Foster.” For us, the conversation with Dr. Foster has reminded us of the huge inequities that exist in the world, but also the tr...

Clip of Senate hearing with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

That was a clip from a Senate hearing with  Robert F Kennedy Jr, who, as many listeners will know, is the current US Secretary of Health and Human Services. In 2025, many folks around the world have become interested in the way that science currently works, particularly around the process of peer review. Peer review is a process where scientific journals ask experts in the field to evaluate the validity and accuracy of articles that are submitted to the journal. There are many challenges around peer review in the m...

The only thing that can save us from our irascibly self-centered existence is to make sure that our existence is in the service of others

Mark Shrime, ENT surgeon, global surgery researcher and now career coach is our guest on this episode. The quote I read was from his wonderful book, “Solving for Why: A Surgeon’s Journey to Discover the Transformative Power of Purpose”. It’s important to understand just how much of a fascinating person Mark Shrime is to get a context for this conversation. Dr. Shrime was the International Chief Medical Officer at Mercy Ships, a...

Tsuyoshi Konishi

Dr. Tsuyoshi Konishi is an associate professor of Colon and Rectal Surgery at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston, USA. We again got a chance to hear several of his talks at the COLOSOS conference in Toronto in Oct 2024. 

Dr. Konishi is really helping to bridge the gap between “Eastern” and “Western” approaches to colorectal cancer. In this episode, Dr. Konishi really broke down the sometimes nebulous concept of complete mesocolic excision in right sided colon cancers. We’d really encourage you to head over to our YouTube channel www...

This week we were joined by Dr. Jenny Seligmann. Dr. Seligmann is a Professor of Gastrointestinal and Translational Oncology and Honorary Consultant in Medical Oncology at the University of Leeds. Dr. Seligmann is one of the authors of the seminal FOxTROT trial, which investigated the use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in advanced colon cancers. Dr. Seligmann is the lead investigator on the FOxTROT platform, the ARIEL trial, and continues to be on the leading edge of trials for colorectal cancer. In this episode, we explored neoadjuvant chemotherapy for colon cancer specifically. There's lots to take away from this conversation, but...

This episode is an edited version of a talk I gave to our first years during their Surgical Foundations course. It’s mainly a reminder to myself: this too shall pass.

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Selwyn O. Rogers Jr., MD, MPH, FACS, is a widely respected surgeon and public health expert. As founding director of the University of Chicago Medicine Trauma Center, Dr. Rogers is building an interdisciplinary team of specialists to treat patients who suffer injury from life-threatening events, such as car crashes, serious falls and gun violence. His team works with leaders in the city's trauma network to expand trauma care on the South Side.

Dr. Rogers has served in leadership capacities at health centers across the country, including most recently as vice president and chief medical officer for the...

This episode is a recording of the Queen’s Department of Surgery William Ersil Research Day. This year our invited speaker was Dr. Thomas Forbes, chief of surgery at University Health Network in Toronto and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Vascular Surgery.
In this “How I Built This” style episode in front of a live audience, we explored Dr. Forbes background, his training, the future of residency/fellowship training, his approach to leadership and how he goes “all in” for both work and his family life.
Thanks again to the Department of Surgery at Queen’s for allowing us...

We are delighted to release our new collaborative mini-series on “Medico-legal Risks for
the Surgeon”. The Canadian Medical Protective Association and the Cold Steel podcast
have teamed up to release this mini-series exploring some common legal issues that
might arise for surgeons.

In this first episode, we explore some basic legal issues that surgeons might face. We
explore the peer-review system, documentation, inherent risk, the role of the system in
medico-legal errors, and the impact these issues have on surgeons.
Stay tuned for our other episodes!

Bio:
Dr. Rich...

Thank you for joining us on Cold Steel!

Dr. Caprice Greenberg is a surgical oncologist at UNC School of Medicine in North Carolina. She is a preeminent health services researcher and also the founder of the Academy for Surgical Coaching. We caught up with her to do a deep dive on surgical coaching and the work that she’s done on a state-wide level to create a coaching program. Dr. Greenberg is an iconoclast and provides some really important insights on the importance on having a vision and pursuing it, no matter how off the beaten path it...

Dr. Adom Bondzi-Simpson is a general surgery resident and PhD student at the University of Toronto. He’s been nationally recognized for his advocacy work and research work on social justice and social determinants of health. He is a winner of the Canadian Medical Association for Young Leaders, the 2023 winner of the Mikhael Award for Medical Education from the Resident Doctors of Canada, among other accolades. In this episode we do a very deep dive on Adom’s upbringing and background, and his thoughts on how we can make the house of surgery a more diverse and welcoming place.         

Link...

Thank you so much for joining us on Cold Steel!

The tremulous surgeon seems like such an oxymoron, an impossible paradox. The reality of course, is that many surgeons have a tremor. Our discussion on this episode with Lilli Cooper on tremors was a wonderful exploration of performance anxiety in surgery. Lilli Cooper is a plastic surgeon in the UK, and produced a segment for the BBC on tremors in surgeons. We caught up with her to talk about what she’s learned about tremors and the insights she has on performance in surgery. You can check ou...

We’re really excited to bring you talks that we recorded as part of the CANUCS Surgical Fellows course. CANUCS is a national organization that stands for Canadian collaborative on urgent care surgery. Dr. Chad Ball and Kelly Vogt were instrumental in bringing together some really fantastic speakers  to talk about the critical knowledge and skills that surround obtaining a staff job, as well as being successful both personally and professionally in a demanding career. 

Dr. Morad Hameed is an innovator, leader, and trauma surgeon. He currently is the chief of acute care surgery at Stanford University and...

We’re really excited to bring you talks that we recorded as part of the CANUCS Surgical Fellows course. CANUCS is a national organization that stands for Canadian collaborative on urgent care surgery. Dr. Chad Ball and Kelly Vogt were instrumental in bringing together some really fantastic speakers  to talk about the critical knowledge and skills that surround obtaining a staff job, as well as being successful both personally and professionally in a demanding career. 

Dr. Morgan Schellenberg is a trauma and acute care surgeon who recently joined us back in Canada as a staff surgeon at St...

We’re really excited to bring you talks that we recorded as part of the CANUCS Surgical Fellows course. CANUCS is a national organization that stands for Canadian collaborative on urgent care surgery. Dr. Chad Ball and Kelly Vogt were instrumental in bringing together some really fantastic speakers  to talk about the critical knowledge and skills that surround obtaining a staff job, as well as being successful both personally and professionally in a demanding career. 

Dr. Ashlie Nadler is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto and practices at Sunnybrook Hospital. She has unique training in both...

We’re really excited to bring you talks that we recorded as part of the CANUCS Surgical Fellows course. CANUCS is a national organization that stands for Canadian collaborative on urgent care surgery. Dr. Chad Ball and Kelly Vogt were instrumental in bringing together some really fantastic speakers to talk about the critical knowledge and skills that surround obtaining a staff job, as well as being successful both personally and professionally in a demanding career. 

Dr. Kelly Vogt is an acute care and trauma surgeon at Western University in London, Ontario and is an outstanding surgeon-scientist. Dr. Vog...

We’re really excited to bring you talks that we recorded as part of the CANUCS Surgical Fellows course. CANUCS is a national organization that stands for Canadian collaborative on urgent care surgery. Dr. Chad Ball and Kelly Vogt were instrumental in bringing together some really fantastic speakers  to talk about the critical knowledge and skills that surround obtaining a staff job, as well as being successful both personally and professionally in a demanding career. 

Dr. Rob Leeper is an acute care and trauma surgeon at Western University in London, Ontario. Dr. Leeper gives a talk that I wi...