Representatives from various stakeholder groups are appointed to the Branch’s Strategic Advisory Committee from a wide variety of surgical care specialties, representing the interdisciplinary nature of surgical care.
Sam Bugis, MD, FRCSC
Dr. Bugis is a General Surgeon with subspecialty training and expertise in Head and Neck and Endocrine Surgery. After General Surgery residency at the University of Alberta, he did a Clinical Fellowship in Head and Neck Surgery at McMaster University and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario and then a research fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston Texas. He has practiced in British Columbia for 30 years. He is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Surgery, UBC. He is a recipient of the General Surgery Teacher of the Year award and was a Fellowship Examiner for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in General Surgery. Dr. Bugis has held numerous leadership positions including Medical Staff President at Royal Columbian Hospital and Chief of Surgery at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, BC and Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton Alberta. He has been Head, Section of General Surgery and Specialist representative on the BCMA Statutory Negotiating Committee. Currently, Dr. Bugis is Vice President, Physician Affairs and Specialist Practice, Doctors of BC.
His interest in Global Surgery was sparked by attending the Bethune Round Table Conference held in Vancouver in 2013. Shortly thereafter he took the Canadian Network for International Surgery’s (CNIS) Essential Surgical Skills Instructor Course and a few months after that was in Moshi, Tanzania for a two week session teaching and supervising that course. Since then, he has visited Developing Countries in Sub Saharan Africa and South America on multiple occasions. He has also obtained the Graduate Certificate in Global Surgical Care from the Branch for Global Surgical Care at UBC. Currently, He is Board Chair of the Canadian Network for International Surgery and a Fellow and Examiner for the College of Surgeon of East, Central and Southern Africa.
Luba Butska, RM, PhD
Luba Butska RM, PhD, is a Registered Midwife and Associate Professor of Teaching,Midwifery Program, Department of Family Practice, UBC. After obtaining her RM degree in Toronto, Ontario, Luba moved to Calgary, AB, with full-scope privileges at Foothills Medical Center. Funding of midwifery services in Alberta led to rapid regulatory and educational changes, and Luba held many leadership positions before and after funding; for example, as an Alberta Health Services midwifery executive member, board member of Alberta’s inaugural regulatory College of Midwives, and lecturer in the first year of Alberta’s Bachelor of Midwifery degree. After moving to Vancouver, Luba became a full-time instructor at the UBC Midwifery Program and is now a tenured Associate Professor of teaching and faculty lead for Global Health. She continues to practice as a midwife in her community and as a locum in several BC communities and Health Authorities.
As a Global Health Lead in the Midwifery Program, Luba is responsible for undergraduate curriculum in global health and midwifery. Luba’s recent global health experience is focused on Ukraine, a lower-middle income country experiencing war. In the spring of 2022, she was part of a Canadian-based NGO, providing primary care for displaced people in Poland and western Ukraine. In spring and summer 2023 she worked with a civil society organization delivering medical aid in Ukraine. In 2024 she was an invited faculty visitor to a Ukrainian college for nurses and midwives, and collaborated with international health body representatives working to strengthen midwifery services in Ukraine. She continues to collaborate with diverse participants who work to strengthen health care delivery in Ukraine, where she plans a year-long study leave starting in September 2025. Luba’s scholarly focus is ethical and sustainable participation of high-income midwifery educators in global health care education.
Michelle Dodds, RN, BSN (she/her)
Michelle Dodds is an Emergency nurse with more than 20 years of experience. Her education and experience have lead her to post-secondary teaching positions, management, leadership and program development. She most recently spent time as the Manager of Pediatric Trauma at BC Children’s Hospital and is currently the Clinical Operations Manager with Health Emergency Management BC (HEMBC), Provincial Operations. Michelle is passionate about improving health inequity, and advocating for change.
Ryan Falk, BSc, BA, MD, CCFP(ESS), FCFP, DTM&H, MGSC
Rural Representative
Dr. Falk is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Surgery and a Clinical Instructor in Rural Family Medicine at the University of British Columbia. He is a family physician who practices both Enhanced Surgical Skills and Rural Generalist Medicine in the Beaufort Delta Region of the Northwest Territories, where he was the Clinical Lead for Surgical Services for 9 years. Dr. Falk is currently the chair of the Continuing Professional Development Committee for ESS at the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada (SRPC) and the chair of the Member Interest Group in ESS at the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC). Having completed the Masters in Global Surgical Care (MGSC) program in 2021, his research interests include rural surgical services in Canada and other high income countries, as well as the role of non-specialist physicians and non-physician clinicians in the provision of surgical care globally. In addition to over a decade of experience in a mostly indigenous region of the Canadian Arctic, he has also been involved in a surgical program in northern Ghana since 2018.
Faizal Haji, MD, PhD, FRCSC
Faizal Haji is a pediatric neurosurgeon at the BC Children’s Hospital and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Haji is also co-lead for the Surgical Education Research Interest Group and Associate Director of the Global Surgery Lab within the Department of Surgery at UBC.
Dr. Haji completed undergraduate studies followed by medical training at McMaster University. After graduating from medical school in 2008, he completed his neurosurgical residency at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. During residency, Dr. Haji obtained a PhD from the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Toronto, alongside completing research fellowships at the Ronald R. Wilson Centre for Research in Education at UHN and the Learning Institute at the Hospital for Sick Children. His dissertation focused on the effect of fidelity, complexity and cognitive load on learning and transfer of procedural skills for novices engaged in simulation based education. Upon completing neurosurigical residency and becoming a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in 2018, Dr. Haji completed a postgraduate fellowship in pediatric neurological surgery at the Children’s Hospital of Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), where his research focused on capacity development for postgraduate surgical training in resource-limited settings. After training, Dr. Haji spent two years as a pediatric and adult neurosurgeon at the Kingston Health Sciences Centre and Medical Education Scholar at Queen’s University. Dr. Haji’s academic interest is in health professions education, with his program of research focusing on three areas: (i) optimizing the design of simulation-based education for medical and surgical skills training with particular focus on cognitive load and learner engagement; (ii) surgical decision making and factors influencing the quality of education and assessment during surgical training; and (iii) translating innovations in health professions education to facilitate surgical capacity development in resource-limited settings through global surgical partnership.
Emilie Joos, MD, FRCSC
Dr. Joos is a Clinical Assistant Professor with UBC’s Department of Surgery. Dr. Joos is a practicing general surgeon and trauma surgeon at Vancouver General Hospital. At the completion of her surgical critical care training, she was appointed as a clinical instructor in trauma at University of Southern California. She is an instructor for the Advanced Surgical Skills for Exposure in Trauma and an Advanced Trauma Life Support course director. She has been working with Médecins Sans Frontières since 2015 and was deployed several times in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2017 she completed her Emergency Response Unit training with the Canadian Red Cross and is now on the roster for deployment. Dr. Joos is a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada in General Surgery and obtained her Critical Care accreditation from the Royal College in 2014. She is a Fellow of the American Board of Surgery. Dr. Joos is a course director for the Advanced Surgical Skills for Exposure in Trauma, the Definitive Surgical Trauma Care and the Advanced Trauma Life Support courses. She is the provincial chair for ATLS in British Columbia and the Surgical Care Surgery Fellowship program director at UBC, in addition to being the Associate Medical Director at the Branch for Global Surgical Care and the Co-Lead of the Global Surgery Lab.
Shahrzad Joharifard, MD, MPH
Dr. Joharifard is a pediatric surgeon with a passion for global health, particularly in conflict and post-conflict settings. She has extensive experience in sub-Saharan Africa. Immediately after completing general surgery residency at UBC, she began working as a surgeon for Partners in Health at JJ Dossen Memorial Hospital, a remote referral hospital in Harper, Liberia. There, she served as one of only 11 surgeons in the entire country of 4.7 million people—and only 1 of 3 outside the capital. Prior to entering medicine, she spent two years working with the International Rescue Committee in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sierra Leone. While a medical student, Dr. Joharifard then spent a year in Rwanda, where she conducted epidemiological research and worked with Partners in Health to establish surgical services in Rwinkwavu and Butaro. She has also worked at Kolofata District Hospital in the Extreme North of Cameroon, Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, South Africa, Mbingo Baptist Hospital in Northwest Cameroon, and Gondor University Hospital in Gondor, Ethiopia.
Dr. Joharifard holds an AB in History cum laude from Princeton University, an MD from Duke University, and an MPH in Clinical Effectiveness from the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed her residency in General Surgery at the University of British Columbia in 2017, followed by fellowship in Pediatric Surgery at CHU Sainte-Justine at the Université de Montréal in 2020. Dr. Joharifard is currently an attending Pediatric Surgeon and Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery at British Columbia Children’s Hospital. She is also an active surgeon with Médecins Sans Frontières and has been supporting the essential surgical skills training course in Aweil, South Sudan with Dr. Emilie Joos.
Rupinder Khotar, GenDN, PsychDN, BScN
Rupinder is the OR Nursing Supervisor at St. Paul’s Hospital. She has been an OR nurse since 1992 and worked as one of the educators of the Providence Health Care (PHC) Perioperative Nursing Program for 10 years before taking over her present role. She is the past Chair of the Operating Room Nurses Association of Canada (ORNAC) Standards Committee, served as President Elect from 2011-2013 and as ORNAC President from 2013-2015.
James Kim, BSc., MD, FRCPC
Dr. Kim graduated from the University of British Columbia (UBC) medical school and completed his anesthesia residency in 1999. His training also included a year of General Practice (GP) Anesthesia and practice in Williams Lake, BC from 1995 to 1996. For more than 15 years, he worked at Lion’s Gate Hospital in North Vancouver. In 2015, he became the Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology at Providence Healthcare (St. Paul’s Hospital and Mount St Joseph’s Hospital) in Vancouver, where he has been for the past 8 years.
Dr Kim has undertaken numerous administrative roles for Vancouver Coastal Health (VHC) and serves as the organization’s Regional Head of Anesthesiology and Regional Surgery Program Co-Medical Director. He is an active member of the broader anesthesiology community—both at the provincial and national level—within BC Anesthesiologists’ Society (BCAS) and Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society (CAS). Dr Kim was President of the BCAS and has also served on the CAS Board as the BC Representative and Treasurer from 2017-2021.
At UBC, he was the Family Practice Anesthesia (FPA) Residency Program director and is currently on the UBC Department Executive Committee. Dr Kim is a strong advocate for global health. He currently serves as a Trustee on the Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society International Education Foundation (CASIEF) Board of Directors, and has several years of experience working in Haiti, Guatemala, and Rwanda.
Phyllis Kisa, MBChB, FCS ECSA, MMed (Surgery)
LMIC Representative
Dr. Phyllis Kisa completed medical school at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. She then worked as an intern doctor and as a medical officer (general doctor) in the surgical department at St. Mary’s Hospital Lacor, Uganda. Following this, she attained her MMED in General surgery from Makerere University and Fellowship in General Surgery of the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa. Soon after, started a pediatric surgical fellowship training with the College of Surgeon of East Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA), a hybrid training with part in Uganda and 18 months (2014-mid-2015) at BC children’s hospital in Vancouver, Canada in pediatric general surgery and pediatric urology. She returned to BC Children’s hospital in 2018 to complete a formal clinical fellowship in pediatric urology becoming their first clinical fellow and the first fellowship trained pediatric urologist in Uganda. She is lecturer in pediatric surgery at Makerere University College of Health Sciences in Kampala, Uganda, and Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia in the Division of Urology and the Branch of International Surgery. She is keen on fostering training and collaborations, and have a strong interest in research, particularly research into perioperative nutrition.
Gary Redekop, BSc, MD, MSc, FRCSC
Dr. Redekop received his MD from the University of Western Ontario (UWO) and completed neurosurgical residency and fellowship training in cerebrovascular surgery in the Division of Neurosurgery at UWO. He completed graduate studies in the molecular biology of growth factors and angiogenesis, and then fellowship training in Interventional Neuroradiology at the University of Toronto.
He has worked in close collaboration with colleagues in surgery, anesthesia, radiology, and neurology to develop a multidisciplinary service integrating microvascular and endovascular approaches to cerebrovascular disease. His clinical practice also includes the surgical treatment of epilepsy.
David Stockton, MD, MSc, FRCSC
Dr. Stockton is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Orthopaedics at UBC and an Orthopaedic Trauma Surgeon at Vancouver General Hospital. He completed medical training at the University of Toronto followed by residency at UBC. While in residency, David completed a Master of Applied Science degree through the UBC Clinician Investigator Program. He traveled to Baltimore for a fellowship in Orthopaedic Traumatology at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Centre at the University of Maryland. David is an active member of the Canadian Orthopaedic Association and the Orthopaedic Trauma Association.
David’s clinical practice and research focuses on challenging fractures in orthopaedic trauma. He treats patients with a wide spectrum of injury including peri-articular fractures, pelvic and acetabulum fractures, and patients with mangled extremities. He has clinical and academic interest in post-traumatic sequelae including nonunion, malunion, and infection. He applies his clinical and research interests both locally and globally as a member of the Uganda Sustainable Trauma Orthopaedics Program (USTOP). David has collaborated with Engineers in Imaging Biomechanics to study injuries to knee ligaments using upright MRI, and is interested in novel applications for weight-bearing imaging and monitoring for patients with fractures. He works with engineering trainees, graduate students, clinical residents, and other allied researchers to pursue this research.
He has worked in close collaboration with colleagues in surgery, anesthesia, radiology, and neurology to develop a multidisciplinary service integrating microvascular and endovascular approaches to cerebrovascular disease. His clinical practice also includes the surgical treatment of epilepsy.
Ruth Vilayil, MD, FRCSC
Ruth Vilayil, MD, FRCSC
Dr. Vilayil graduated as a specialist in Obstetrics and Gynaecology from the University of Alberta and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada since 2015. She is a recipient of the David Cook award for Curricular Innovation at the University of Alberta. She spent part of her training internationally in New York, USA, India, and east Africa.
She worked for 3 years in Kampala, Uganda where she was the Head of Department at a renowned British-run international women’s hospital and Consultant OBGYN at
at The Surgery Uganda urgent care centre. She has a broad interest in the areas of surgical education, quality improvement and global health.
Dr Vilayil is now Clinical Assistant Professor at UBC, practicing community Gynecologic Surgeon and Obstetrician in Maple Ridge, BC and the Regional Division Head – Gynecology for Fraser Health Authority. She holds a Physician Quality Improvement Certificate in collaboration with UBC CPD, Physician Leadership Program Certificate from UBC Sauder School of Business, and is a reviewer for MicroResearch, which seeks to improve local research capacity in Africa.