Through sustained and expanding collaboration, capacity to realize our mission has continued to burgeon. Approaching the core of our mission from different angles, each collaboration has provided a unique route through which to lead, partner, educate, and serve to realize safe surgical care for all.
Explore our collaborations by clicking on the project titles below!
Developed to help engineers understand and appreciate the needs and uses of technology in health care, the Engineers in Scrubs program helps biomedical engineers learn to navigate the interfaces among engineering research, medical research, clinical practice and product development. Students receive a significant portion of their training in hospital settings, and the program focuses on the medical technology innovation process.
Past projects include:
- Portable, Affordable, Reusable Postpartum Hemorrhage Simulator
- Simulator Providing Treatment for Jejunoileal Atresia (Small Bowel Blockages)
- Environmentally Sustainable Self-Molding Cast
- Detection of Humeral Shaft Fracture Non-Union
- Pavlik Haness / Harness for Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip
- OR Suction for Low and Middle Income Countries
- Portable Video Goggles for the Assessment of Dizzy Patients
- Thermal Cautery for Low-Resource Settings
- Tourniquets for Low-Resource Hospitals
- Colostomy Bag for Low-Resource Settings
- Keratoconus Diagnosis Tool for Low-Resource Settings
- Orthopaedic Traction Device for the Developing World
- Phonation Device for Low-Resource Settings
BGSC participated in the 2012, 2017 and 2025 Bring Back Hope Galas launched by Mr. Gary Segal, highly successful fundraisers that generated funds to provide for further spinal deformity surgeries and to address the high incidence of severe scoliosis in Ethiopia. The event is dedicated to the work of Dr. Rick Hodes, an American Internal Medicine specialist who for 27 years has served as the Medical Director for Ethiopia for the Joint Distribution Committee to treat patients suffering from spine disease. Since the inaugural event in 2012, the Branch has partnered with Dr. Hodes, providing opportunities for research collaboration and contributing to the sustainability of his work through training, education, and development of global health leaders. In April 2026, the JDC Bring Back Hope National Spine Center has officially opened at St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College in Addis Ababa—creating, for the first time, a dedicated national facility for the treatment of complex spine deformities in Ethiopia
The Spine Deformity Program began in 2015 when its needs assessment reflected the absence of native surgeons providing advanced spinal surgery locally within Ethiopia’s public health system, with no Ethiopian surgeons providing deformity correction surgery for adults or children and no national or local programs in existence for detection of spinal deformity. With financial support from the American Jewish Joint distribution Committee (JDC), many Ethiopian patients travel to the Foundation of Orthopedic and Complex Spine (FOCOS) in Ghana to have surgery; Dr. Rick Hodes, working for the JDC also assesses many spine patients in Ethiopia. However, the number of patients with severe deformity requiring surgery greatly outnumbers existing support.
For a sustainable Ethiopian Spine Deformity Program, fundamental components include: (i) Full delivery of care by local Ethiopian professionals – requiring investment in education and mentorship; (ii) Support of the Ethiopian Ministry by the Branch and the JDC for delivery of national priorities and the program; (iii) Engagement with and leadership from local academic groups (Neurosurgery and Orthopedic Departments). Currently the program is growing with development of a Clinical Assessment tool and cell-phone based ‘deformity recognition’ screening tool; mentoring and training opportunities for bilateral clinical exchanges between UBC and Ethiopian trainees; continued relations with both Neurosurgery and Orthopedic Departments at Black Lion hospital; and collaboration enhancement between existing local expertise and the JDC-run spine program.
Project leader: Firoz Miyanji
Firoz Miyanji is a Clinical Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at UBC with a clinical practice focusing on paediatric spine surgery at BC Children’s Hospital. His passion lies in providing the highest quality of care to his patients and has made tremendous gains in changing the surgical culture toward a patient-centric approach.
His academic interests in clinical outcomes, quality/safety, and innovative therapies have grounded him as an international thought leader in paediatric spine. His numerous international, prospective surgical registries have enabled the establishment of care pathways, best practice guidelines, and a surgical “team approach” to minimize intra and peri-operative complications.
More recently he helped pioneer a fusionless surgical treatment option for scoliosis working with biomedical industry partners in developing and bringing to market a first of its kind FDA-approved medical device.
Upon completion of his MBA at Rotman, Firoz hopes to build clinical surgical programs of excellence that foster innovation, significantly enhance the patient’s surgical journey, and do so in a collaborative, supportive, team environment that remain patient-centric.
Funding for this project has been generously provided by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). We are deeply appreciative of their ongoing support.
There is a shortage a surgical providers in Sub-Saharan Africa, and especially in countries that do not provide access to formal surgical training programs, such as South Sudan. One of the potential solutions to this shortage of providers is training and validating non-surgeon physicians (NSP) to perform surgical procedures, which is called task-shifting or task-sharing. In 2019, a partnership between MSF Operational Center Paris (OCP) and UBC-BGSC was formalized to create a surgical task-sharing curriculum, in order to help build capacity in MSF-surgical projects in South Sudan, with a Memorandum of Understanding signed in March 2021.
A team of UBC affiliated professors designed an Essential Surgical Skills (ESS) curriculum, targeted for implementation in Aweil, South Sudan. Experienced specialists were chosen for designing each module, based on their expertise in their field as well as global surgery experience.
In May 2019, an MSF surgeon-trainer was deployed to Aweil, on a one-year contract, to support the ESS training program. In June 2019, three clinical officers working at Aweil hospital were recruited to the ESS training program, based on their medical knowledge (successful completion of pre-test) and motivation to pursue further surgical training.
The training officially began July 1, 2019 and has now trained three physicians in South Sudan and will expand to the Central African Republic in 2026.
A five-year memorandum of understanding between UBC Department of Surgery and MSF-France has been signed in 2021 and renewed in 2025 for a five year term, paving the way for continued collaboration in the future.
Project leader: Dr. Emilie Joos
Dr. Emilie 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. Dr. Joos participated in a volunteer mission to Haiti with the Medishare project, where she taught basic trauma care to local healthcare providers.
Dr. Joos completed a Masters in Global Health Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2019. 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 the Associate Director of the UBC Branch for Global Surgical Care and the Trauma and Acute Care Surgery Fellowship program director, instructor for the Advanced Surgical Skills for Exposure in Trauma, and Advanced Trauma Life Support course director.