Jim Pattison Outpatient Care and Surgery Centre
10 Year Anniversary
Clinic Highlight: Surgery
With more than 70 highly specialized surgeons, the Department of Surgery in Surrey includes over 10 medical specialties, including thoracic surgery, orthopedics, general surgery, urology, plastic surgery and more, notes retinal surgeon Dr. Steve Levasseur.
A tertiary care centre that provides a wide range of services, “six operating rooms are stocked with state-of-the-art equipment and managed by an amazing team of nurses and surgeons,” Dr. Levasseur says. “The setting and staff together creates an atmosphere that makes people feel at ease in periods of their lives where it’s quite stressful.”
One of the key areas of surgical excellence at the centre is the surgical retina group, which welcomes people from the industry who come from all over the world to observe surgeries and also collaborate to design new instruments to facilitate the improvement of treatment.
“The equipment and technologies that have been purchased through the Surrey Hospitals Foundation allows us to provide patients with the best visual outcomes,” Dr. Levasseur says.
For example, “because we’re involved in Fellowship training, and there’s no room for error in retinal surgery, it’s difficult for a Fellow who’s never done retinal surgery to perform surgery on a real patient. We’ve been able to purchase one of only five VRmagics, a virtual reality machine that teaches Fellows how to perform surgeries and develop surgical skills so that when they graduate, they’re now safely able to practice their new skills on patients, under our guidance.
“Donor support is critical to allowing us to purchase equipment that is state-of-the art and lets us practice at the best of our abilities, which ultimately results in the best care possible for our patients.”
