Dr. Steven Morris is a Plastic Surgeon with QE11 Health Sciences and also a Professor of Surgery and Medical Neurosciences at Dalhousie University. Dr. Morris further works in the Division of Otolaryngology at Dalhousie University as well. Dr. Steven Morris is a member of the Nucleus Committee of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. 

Dr. Morris’ research interests include, Perforator flaps, microsurgery, tissue blood flow, anatomy of microsurgical tissue transfers, and melanoma. 

P. Ronan O’Connell is Emeritus Professor of Surgery and honorary Consultant Surgeon at St Vincent’s University Hospital Dublin. He is also President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and President-elect of the European Surgical Association. Dr. O’Connell is past President and Honorary Member of the European Society of Coloproctology, and he is a past Secretary of the BJS Society as well as Vice President of the James’ IV Society of Surgeons.

Dr. Ronan O’Connell has served as editor of the British Journal of Surgery, Associate Editor and Editor in Chief for the European Surgical Association, Associate Editor of Diseases of the Colon and Rectum and is currently an Editorial Board member of the Annals of Surgery. Dr. O’Connell is widely published in the areas of IBD, colorectal cancer and pelvic floor physiology. He is joint editor of Bailey and Love’s Short Practice of Surgery and Rob and Smith’s Operative Surgery of the Colon Rectum and Anus. In addition, he is joint editor of the European Manual in Coloproctology.

Dr. O’Connell has received honorary fellowships from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (2002), the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (2014) the Royal College of Surgeons of England (2019) and the College of Surgeons of Hong Kong (2019). In 2015, he was awarded honorary fellowships of the American Surgical Association and the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons. He is the Hunterian Orator of RCS England 2019-2020.

Dr. Seymour Schwartz has cultivated his expertise in hepatobiliary surgery and other complex operations over the course of 60 years of his practice. He finished his residency at the University of Rochester in 1957 after a 20-month leave to serve in the U.S Navy during the Korean War, and then joined the surgical faculty. Dr. Schwarts served as the chair of Surgery from 1987 to 1998, and was the director of Surgical Research for 20 years. Most notably, Schwartz also edited and co-authored the standard textbook for the profession: “Schwartz’s Principles of Surgery”. The first edition of the book, known as “the surgeon’s bible” was unique for being rooted in basic science and was first published in 1969.

Schwartz ultimately retired from the operating room at age 72 and during his career served as the president of three of the most important American surgical societies: The Society of Clinical Surgery, the American Surgical Association, and the American College of Surgeons. 

Dr. Adrian Park is Chairman of the Department of Surgery and of the Earl SAIL(Simulation to Advance Innovation and Learning) Center of Anne Arundel Health System, in Annapolis, Maryland. He is also a Professor of Surgery at Johns Hopikins University School of Medicine. Dr. Park has made major advancements in the improvement of laparoscopic techniques and technology for complex hernia repair, foregut and spleen surgery. 

Dr. Adrian Park has previously held many administrative positions including: Vice Chair for the Department of Surgery, the Head of the Division of General Surgery at the University of Maryland Medical Center, the Chair of the Maryland Advanced Simulation, Training, Research, and Innovation (MASTRI) Center, and Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Dalhousie University. Currently, Dr. Park is a member of the Board of Directors of the SAGES, and has served as the Fellowship Council’s founding President as well as its Board Chair. He is Editor-in-Chief of Surgical Innovation and holds 20 patents, acting instrumental in the development and application of new technologies in endoscopic surgery. 

Dr. David Feliciano is an educator to the country’s clinical trauma surgeons and surgeon-scientists from coast to coast. Dr. Feliciano is a surgical triple threat whose contributions to the practice, research and teaching of trauma care have rarely been matched. 

Dr. Noelle Grace is Canada’s first female Pediatric surgeon. Dr. Grace was born in London, Ontario in February 1942 and obtained her medical degree from Western University in 1965 while playing for the varsity women’s basketball team. In 1970, Dr. Noelle Grace was one of the first women to move into specialized medicine in Québec through training at the Montréal General Hospital. 

Dr. John Denstedt graduated from medical school in 1982 at Western University and completed his residency in Urology at Western between 1983 and 1987. Dr. Denstedt then completed a fellowship in Endourology at Washington University in St. Louis. He returned to Western University and joined the Division of Urology in the Department of Surgery in 1990. 

In July 2002, Dr. Denstedt assumed the role of Chair and Chief of the Department of Surgery at Western University and served in that role for 14 years. He is also a past Chair of the Canadian Association of Surgical Chairs and has served on the American Urological Association Board of Directors. Dr. John Denstedt further completed a 10 year term as Treasurer of the Endourological Society in 2018 and has also been a past President of the Northeastern Section of the AUA. In 2023, he began as President of Endourological Society. 

While maintaining an active clinical practice, Dr. Denstedt has a number of academic accomplishments. Dr. Denstedt is an internationally renowned scholar in urology with career accomplishments encompassing over 300 published papers and book chapters, more than 400 guest professorships in 60 countries, and numerous honours and awards including being the first Canadian to have won the Gold Cystoscope Award from the American Urological Association in 1998. 

Dr. Grace Rozycki has over 43 years of experience and is a critical care surgery specialist in Baltimore. She graduated from Thomas Jefferson University in 1980 and is affiliated with Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. 

Dr. Paul Sugarbaker received his medical degree from Cornell University and completed his surgical training at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now known as Brigham and Women’s Hospital) in Boston, Massachusetts. He then went on to obtain a Masters Degree in Immunology at Harvard University in 1983. 

Dr. Jaap Bonjer is Professor of Surgery and Chair of the Department of Surgery at the Amsterdam UMC. He specializes in operations on the thyroid, parathyroid glands, adrenal glands, spleen disorders, inguinal hernias and incisional hernias. Dr. Bonjer is closely involved in the development and scientific evaluation of keyhole surgery, both nationally and internationally. As well, he has established training centres for surgical skills in Rotterdam, Netherlands and in Halifax, Canada. 

In 2000, Dr. Bonjer was appointed to Chair in Endoscopic Surgery at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands. It is there he developed a multidisciplinary simulation facility, the Skills Lab Erasmus MC, in 2004. Shortly after, Dr. Jaap Bonjer served as the Professor of Surgery at Dalhousie University (2004-2009) and then as Chair of the Dalhousie and Capital Health Department of Surgery (2006-2009). He also initiated the Nova Scotia Surgical Network and founded the Skills Centre for Health Sciences in 2007. 

More recently, in 2019, Dr. Bonjer founded the Amsterdam Skills Centre (ASC) for Health Sciences which aims to trian more than 3000 health care professionals per year.