Division of Gastroenterology
St. Michael's Hospital (SMH)

Overview

Dr. Gary May, Interim Division Head

There are 11 faculty members within the Division of Gastroenterology at St. Michael's Hospital (SMH) whose biosketches are listed below. Together with Minimally Invasive Surgery, we comprise the Minimal Access Therapy Programme (MAT). Our mandate is to provide excellent health care for patients with digestive and hepatobiliary diseases in the immediate downtown Toronto area, to inner city populations that are currently under-serviced and also to provide special services for patients throughout the province and across the country. At St. Michael's Hospital, we are particularly proud of our reputation as leaders in Health Sciences education at the undergraduate, post-graduate subspecialty training, post-doctoral levels and beyond. A major part of our academic work within the Gastroenterology Division is also research, both basic wet lab research and applied or patient related research. Our research emphasis, also reflecting our clinical care and educational strengths, is in the areas of advanced Therapeutic Endoscopy, nutrition, cancers of the digestive system and inflammatory bowel disease.

Our inpatient service has 14 inpatient beds in a combined medical surgical ward and while most conditions can be managed outside of hospital, we investigate and treat complex gastrointestinal problems with the support of a multidisciplinary team (medical, surgical, nutrition and nursing, pharmacy, radiology and pathology, social services etc.). We are the largest Clinical Teaching Unit in the Division of Gastroenterology at the University of Toronto, and also provide an extensive consultation service to our other inpatient services, the Emergency Department, our local community hospitals, provincially and outside Ontario. The Endoscopy Unit at St. Michael's Hospital is a state of the art facility with 8 endoscopy rooms, 7 functioning at any given time (2 for ERCP) and one that is allocated for research activities. Between 11,000 and 13,500 endoscopies per year are currently performed in our unit, serving the local geographic area, the city, the province and nationally. Many of our patients are referred from other university hospitals. We run an internationally renowned advanced Therapeutic Endoscopy Training Programme and a 4-day Therapeutic Endoscopy Course (in October) that has received world-wide recognition.