E59 Officer Of The Order Of Canada Vivian McAlister On Why He Became A Military Surgeon at 52

Our guest for this episode doesn’t believe in comfort zones. Dr. Vivian McAlister is a transplant surgeon, a professor of surgery in London, Ontario, and a former Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Surgery. At the age of 52, Dr. McAlister decided to enlist with the Canadian Forces Health Services as a combat surgeon. For all his contributions to Canada as a surgeon and researcher, he was recently named an Office of the Order of Canada. In this episode, we talk about why chose to become a military surgeon, some of the challenges of current training paradigms, and his experience being an Editor-in-Chief of CJS. Please note that in this episode, we do discuss the very real but terrible things Dr. McAlister witnessed while on tour with the Canadian military. Please see below: 12:30 – 16:45: description of injuries of children after being hit with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) Links:1. Dr. McAlister naming to the Order of Canada: https://www.schulich.uwo.ca/surgery/about_us/news/2021/dr_vivian_mcalister_named_officer_of_the_order_of_canada.html#:~:text=Order%20of%20Canada-,Dr.,to%20the%20Order%20of%20Canada.2. Dr. McAlister’s John McCrae Memorial Medal: https://www.cma.ca/john-mccrae-memorial-medal-2019-recipient 3. Injury profile suffered by targets of antipersonnel improvised explosive devices: prospective cohort study: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/7/7/e014697.reviewer-comments.pdf4. Dr. McAlister’s paper on the history of CJS: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4512859/5. The current state of resident trauma training: Are we losing a generation? http://canjsurg.ca/61-3-153/Bio:Vivian McAlister is a surgeon at University Hospital London. He is a professor in the Department of Surgery. He is a member of the Canadian Forces Medical service and has deployed to Afghanistan and Haiti. He is a general surgeon with special interest in hepatobiliary, endobiliary, transplant and combat surgery. His research interests include fundamental and clinical research in these areas as well as the history of medicine.https://www.schulich.uwo.ca/generalsurgery/people/bio/vivian_mcalister.html