Perioperative & Surgery

PJ Devereaux

Deputy Director, Senior Scientist

Devereaux is a cardiologist, perioperative care physician, and clinical epidemiologist. He is the Director of the Division of Perioperative Care at McMaster University and a Deputy Director, Senior Scientist, and Scientific Leader of the Anesthesiology, Perioperative Medicine, and Surgical Research Group at PHRI. He is the Nominated Principal Applicant of the Accelerating Clinical Trials (ACT) Consortium, which is the Pan-Canadian Clinical Trials Consortium funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Additionally, he holds a Tier 1 Canadian Research Chair in Perioperative Medicine.

Devereaux is a full Professor at McMaster University and the President of the Society of Perioperative Research and Care. He has published over 450 peer-reviewed papers and more than 85 book chapters, editorials, and commentaries, including 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine, 13 in the Lancet, and 11 in JAMA. He has an h-index of 115 and has given over 1000 lectures and research presentations in 41 countries. His research program focuses on major vascular complications during and after surgery, and he has led many large international randomized trials and prospective cohort studies on this topic.

David Conen

Senior Scientist

David Conen is currently the Principal Investigator and Senior Scientist at the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) and an Associate Professor of Medicine at McMaster University. He serves as a staff cardiologist at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (SJHH) and Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) and is the Cardiology Clinical Site Lead at the Juravinski Hospital. Conen obtained his MD degree at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and holds a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, USA. He completed a 2-year postdoctoral research fellowship in clinical epidemiology. His research focuses on perioperative medicine and atrial fibrillation.

Conen is the Principal Investigator of two large multinational clinical trials aimed at preventing and treating perioperative atrial fibrillation (COP-AF and ASPIRE-AF) and is involved in the leadership of many international cardiovascular and perioperative trials. COP-AF has recently been presented and published. His research activities also include conducting large epidemiological cohort studies that examine risk factors for the occurrence and consequences of atrial fibrillation. He has published over 250 manuscripts in peer-reviewed scientific journals and has received several prestigious grants and awards in both Switzerland and Canada. Conen has extensive knowledge in the design, development, management, analysis, interpretation, and reporting of clinical trials and large-scale epidemiology studies.

Andre Lamy

Scientist

Andre Lamy is a cardiac surgeon practicing at the Hamilton Health Sciences since 1996, and Professor in the Department of Surgery, McMaster University. He led the Canadian Institute of Health Research funded CORONARY trial, which evaluated off-pump CABG surgery versus on-pump CABG surgery in 4752 patients. The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2012 and 2013.

Maura Marcucci

Scientist

Maura Marcucci is a scientist in the Perioperative and Surgery research group at PHRI, and an Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, and Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, at McMaster University. Leveraging on her background in vascular medicine, thrombosis and hemostasis disorders, and geriatrics, Maura’s current main focus of clinical research is cardiovascular and neurocognitive outcomes in noncardiac surgery. She is currently the project officer of the PeriOperative ISchemic Evaluation (POISE)-3 trial and principal investigator of the POISE-3 sub-study on delirium and cognitive decline.

She obtained her medical training and residency in Internal Medicine in Italy. In 2012-2013 she completed an MSc in Health Research Methodology and a clinical fellowship in Hematology/Medicine at McMaster University. In 2014-2016 she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Milan in Italy, before returning to  Hamilton, Canada.

Michael McGillion

Scientist

Michael McGillion is Associate Professor, and Assistant Dean, Research, at the School of Nursing, McMaster University. He is the Heart and Stroke Foundation/Michael G. DeGroote Endowed Chair in Cardiovascular Nursing Research, and the International Visiting Professor of Digital Health, at Coventry University in the UK.

He is an internationally-recognized researcher in the area of persistent forms of cardiac pain such as refractory angina and unrelieved chest pain following successful revascularization procedures. He was Chair of the Joint Canadian Cardiovascular Society – Canadian Pain Society guidelines for the management of refractory angina, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). He is Principal Investigator of the largest CIHR-funded, international prospective cohort study to examine social and psychological predictors of chronic post-surgical pain following cardiac surgery. His research focuses on remote automated monitoring and virtual recovery support for people recovering from cardiac and vascular surgery, decision support for people living with RFA, and global-scale, web-based dissemination of new evidence on persistent forms of cardiac pain.

Mike has been recognized for his research and advocacy by receiving the Canadian Pain Society Early Career Award and the McMaster University Arch Award for outstanding contributions to society; and was the first University Scholar (2019) from the McMaster School of Nursing.

Tej Sheth

Scientist

Tej Sheth is a Scientist with the Perioperative and Surgery research program at PHRI, as well as a Principal Investigator in atherosclerosis imaging, an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at McMaster University, and a interventional cardiologist at Hamilton Health Sciences. His research interests include invasive and non-invasive coronary imaging modalities, including coronary angiography, optical coherence tomography, and CT coronary angiography. He is Director of the CT Angiographic Core Lab for the COMPASS CABG study and the COMPLETE trial at PHRI.

Richard Whitlock

Scientist

Richard Whitlock is Associate Chair, Research, and a Professor at the Department of Surgery, McMaster University. He was awarded the inaugural Canada Research Chair in Cardiovascular Surgery in 2020.

As well as being a PHRI Scientist, Richard is a cardiac surgeon and intensive care physician at Hamilton Health Sciences. His clinical focus is on aortic valve intervention and aortic surgery. He is a lead investigator for the CIHR funded studies SIRS, LAAOS III, and TRICS III, which have established a network of more than 120 centres to address important questions in his field.

He has published more than 90 articles in referred journals. Medically qualified at the University of Toronto, Richard received his specialist training in cardiac surgery and critical care medicine at McMaster University. In 2012, he received his PhD in clinical epidemiology.

Emilie Belley-Côté

Associate Deputy Director, Scientist

Emilie Belley-Côté is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at McMaster University; she practices critical care cardiology in the cardiovascular intensive care unit and coronary care unit at the Hamilton General Hospital. Her research interests include perioperative cardiac surgery care, knowledge synthesis and guideline development. At this stage in her career, she has more than 120 publications, including articles in NEJM, Lancet, JAMA, as well as first-tier critical care journals.

She obtained her MD from Université de Sherbrooke in 2006. After internal medicine and cardiology training, as well as an MSc in Clinical Sciences, she completed a critical care fellowship at McMaster. In 2019, she completed a PhD in Health Research Methodology at McMaster University.

William McIntyre

Scientist

William is a cardiologist and a native of Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. He completed Medical School and Internal Medicine Residency at Queen’s University and Adult Cardiology Residency at the University of Manitoba. He completed a Fellowship in Cardiac Electrophysiology and Pacing and a PhD in Health Research Methodology at McMaster University. He is the only Canadian to receive the European Heart Rhythm Association’s Diploma of Advanced Studies in Cardiac Arrhythmia Management.

He is a consultant cardiologist and arrhythmia service lead at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton. He leads the post-operative atrial fibrillation program at Hamilton Health Sciences.

William is a Scientist at PHRI and an Assistant Professor at McMaster University. He holds research funding from Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Heart and Stroke Foundation of the Canadian Stroke Prevention Intervention Network (C-SPIN), the Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) Atrial Fibrillation Awards Program and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles, including first author works in JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine, Circulation and the European Heart Journal. He was the 2023 recipient of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society’s Young Investigator Award. His research interests include atrial fibrillation screening, medical therapy of atrial fibrillation and the treatment of new-onset atrial fibrillation in cardiac surgery patients.

Flavia Kessler Borges

Scientist

Flavia Kessler Borges is a Scientist at the Population Health Research Institute and an Internist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine and the Perioperative Care Division at McMaster University. She undertook her Masters in Health Sciences and her PhD in Cardiovascular Sciences in Brazil. She undertook a post doctorate and a clinical Perioperative Vascular fellowship under the direction of PHRI Senior Scientist PJ Devereaux at McMaster University. Her research is focused on perioperative cardiac biomarkers, and perioperative strategies to improve patient important outcomes in surgical patients, specially in hip fracture patients. She holds an Internal Career Research Award from Hamilton Health Sciences, a CIHR and NIH large grants as the Principal Investigators of the HIP ATTACK-2 trial.

Rachel Eikelboom

Investigator

Rachel Eikelboom is a cardiac surgery resident and PhD candidate in the Health Research Methodology program under the supervision of PHRI Senior Scientist Richard Whitlock and PHRI Scientist Emilie Belley-Cote.

Her research interests are in antithrombotic therapy after bioprosthetic valve replacement. Rachel is a co-investigator of the SUNDANCE trial, a sub-study of the DANCE trial, which focuses on subclinical valve thrombosis in patients with bioprosthetic aortic valve replacement.

Sandra Ofori

Investigator

Sandra Ofori is an Investigator in the Perioperative and Surgery research group at PHRI, an Assistant Professor in McMaster University’s Department of Medicine (cardiology), and a general cardiologist in Hamilton Health Sciences and St Joseph’s hospital, Hamilton. Her research interests are in the areas of perioperative care and cardiovascular disease prevention.

Her current research program is focused on optimizing the health of patients undergoing surgery with a focus on perioperative smoking cessation and secondary prevention strategies. Ofori is actively involved in the conduct of large international perioperative clinical trials coordinated from PHRI and was the project officer of the Post Discharge after Surgery Virtual Care with Remote Automated Monitoring Technology (PVC-RAM) 1 and 3 trials and a Co-Investigator in the PVC-RAM-2 trial. She is leading the smoking cessation program in the perioperative care group and is the Co-PI of the PREVENT trial.

Ofori completed her residency training in Internal Medicine and Cardiology at the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. She holds a Master’s degree in Preventive Cardiology from the Imperial College, London UK, and completed a Perioperative Medicine fellowship and a PhD in Health Research Methodology (Clinical Epidemiology) from McMaster University both under the supervision of PHRI Senior Scientist PJ Devereaux. She was in the third cohort of the World Heart Federation Salim Yusuf Emerging Leaders Program that was focused on the reduction of the global burden of hypertension

Lily Park

Investigator

Lily Park is a general surgery resident and MSc candidate in the clinician-investigator program under the supervision of PJ Devereaux. Her research interests are in the areas of knowledge translation and perioperative care, specifically in reducing perioperative bleeding and transfusion rates.

She is investigating innovative methods to facilitate the uptake of perioperative care evidence in clinical practice. She is also leading the general surgery sub-studies for the POISE-3 trial and VISION mortality study.

Pavel Roshanov

Investigator

Pavel Roshanov, an internal medicine physician and nephrologist, is completing a fellowship in kidney transplantation at McMaster University. He has published more than 50 papers in the areas of perioperative care and medical informatics.

Jessica Spence

Scientist

Jessica Spence is a cardiac anesthesiologist and intensivist who completed a research fellowship at PHRI and a PhD in Clinical Epidemiology under the supervision of PJ Devereaux.

She is an Assistant Professor at McMaster University and the Principal Investigator of the B-Free Cluster Crossover Trial. Her research program focuses on the perioperative outcomes of cardiac surgery.

Michael Wang

Investigator

Michael Ke Wang is an Investigator at PHRI and an MSc student in the Health Research Methodology Program at McMaster University, supervised by David Conen. His main interests are in perioperative medicine and perioperative atrial fibrillation. Michael is actively involved in the conduct of large international perioperative clinical trials coordinated from PHRI; he is the project officer of the COP-AF and ASPIRE-AF trials.

Michael is a Clinical Scholar in the Division of General Internal Medicine at McMaster University. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Ottawa and completed his internal medicine residency, general internal medicine fellowship, and perioperative vascular training at McMaster University.

Maram Khaled

Investigator

Maram Khaled is an investigator at PHRI, supervised by Maura Marcucci, and a PhD student in the Health Research Methodology Program at McMaster University. Her current research interests focus on perioperative pain, pain management strategies and neurocognitive outcomes after non-cardiac surgery in older adults.

A pain physician, she obtained her medical degree (MBBCh) from Alexandria University, Egypt and her MSc degree in Pharmacology from the University of Toronto where she studied the neurocircuitry of relapse to addiction. She completed her training in Pain Medicine at the Medical Research Institute, Alexandria University, Egypt (2012-2018) where she was involved in clinical research related to acute and chronic pain.

Patrick Wanner

Research Fellow

Patrick Wanner is a Research Fellow at PHRI and an MSc student in the Health Research Methodology Program at McMaster University, supervised by PJ Devereaux. His research focuses on optimizing perioperative and post-discharge hemodynamics to prevent postoperative complications.

Patrick is a Swiss anesthesiologist and intensivist. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Zurich and completed his training at the Cantonal Hospitals of St. Gallen & Baden and at the University Hospital of Basel in Switzerland.

Amit Garg

Associate Scientist

Amit Garg is the Associate Dean, Clinical Research, at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, has practiced as a staff nephrologist at the London Health Sciences Centre in London, Ontario, Canada since 2003, and is a Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Western University, with a cross-appointment in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact (HEI) at McMaster University. A past president of the Canadian Society of Nephrology, Amit Garg serves as the current Ontario Lead of the Kidney, Dialysis and Transplantation Program at ICES.

He values his ongoing collaborations with PJ Devereaux and other leading clinician-scientists at PHRI, which has led to several sub-studies funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research which examined the effects of perioperative interventions on the risk of acute kidney injury (off-pump cardiopulmonary bypass surgery) in the CORONARY study, and more. A current interest is in pragmatic randomized trials embedded into routine healthcare delivery.

Emmanuelle Duceppe

Associate Scientist

Emmanuelle Duceppe is a principal scientist with Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM) Research Centre in Montreal, Quebec. She is also an internist and clinical assistant professor, Department of Medicine, Université de Montréal.

Her research interests include: prediction of preoperative risk in non-cardiac surgery; perioperative interventions and clinical outcomes in non-cardiac surgery; biomarkers for prediction and early identification of perioperative complications; pre- and postoperative management of patients in day surgery; statistical methodology for predictive model development; and cohort studies and clinical trials.

Steffen Blum

Associate Investigator

Steffen Blum worked with PHRI to build up a cohort of patients with myocardial injury of non-cardiac surgery (MINS), who are undergoing cardiac imaging with positron emission tomography for further risk stratification. Additionally, he is involved in the ASPIRE-AF and COP-AF trials and undergoes advanced training in nuclear cardiac imaging at the McMaster affiliated hospitals.

Blum was supervised as a clinical and research fellow at PHRI and McMaster University, supervised by PHRI scientist David Conen. He completed medical school at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. Blum is a Swiss board-certified internist, and has been a resident in cardiology at the University Hospital Basel, Switzerland, where he also completed his PhD in Clinical Research.

Jessica Vincent

Program Director

Jessica Vincent has more than 15 years’ experience in coordinating and managing large, international clinical trials. As Associate Program Manager, she oversees interventional trials, registries, and observational research studies in the areas of perioperative medicine, cardiac surgery, and digital health.

She holds an Honours Bachelor of Science Degree from Queens University, and a Master of Clinical Epidemiology Degree from the University of Newcastle.

Kate Brady

Project Manager

Kate Brady has worked in clinical research since 2008 and joined PHRI in 2010. She has experience in coordinating large international clinical trials and observational studies with a focus on cardiac surgery. She has an Honour’s Bachelor Degree in Science with an Honours Specialization in Genetics from Western University and a post-graduate certificate in Clinical Research from Humber College.

Ingrid Copland

Senior Research Coordinator

Ingrid Copland has been working in research for McMaster University since 1991. She has been at PHRI for 23 years where she has coordinated large, international, industry and investigator initiated trials. Since 2014 she has been with the perioperative and surgery department coordinating observational, drug and device trials.

Emily Di Sante

Senior Research Coordinator

With over 14 years experience in health research coordination, Emily is passionate about building exceptional teams that make a positive impact on global health. She has an Honours Bachelor’s of Arts degree (University of Guelph), Master’s of Political Science degree (McMaster University) and a certificate in Project Management (University of Toronto).

Her research interests include tobacco control, public and patient involvement, long-term care, evaluation and knowledge translation. At PHRI, she supports the perioperative and surgery studies, B-Free, FARGO, FAST, PREVENT and STRATUS.