Dr. Gerald Fried
On January 1, 2020, Dr. Fried was appointed Associate Dean, Education Technology and Innovation, and Director of the Steinberg Centre for Simulation and Interactive Learning (SCSIL), both positions within the McGill University Faculty of Medicine.
In 1990, Dr. Fried established Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) as a clinical and academic program at McGill. He and his colleagues have made significant advances to the training of surgeons and the process of introducing innovation into clinical practice.
His surgical education research is directed at teaching and evaluating procedural skills and what leads to “mastery” among elite surgeons. He and his group have developed widely accepted measures to evaluate surgical skills. The McGill MIS group has developed a simulator-based program to teach and assess fundamental skills in MIS. They demonstrated the effectiveness of this simulation at accelerating the learning curve for acquisition of MIS skills, that the skills learned in the simulation are transferrable to clinical practice, and that simulation performance was highly predictive of performance in the operating room. As a result, this simulation was incorporated into the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery Program, is currently used around the world and has become a requirement for certification in surgery by the American Board of Surgery.
His other area of research focusses on clinical outcomes, especially as they relate to new and less invasive procedures, and the evaluation of novel surgical techniques. He is interested in the broad definition of recovery from functional and physical perspectives, and how improved surgical care from the entire surgical team can impact the recovery process.
Dr. Fried has previously served as Program Director for General Surgery and Vice-Chair for Surgical Education at McGill. His commitment to education has been recognized with election to the McGill Honour Role for Educational Excellence. Nationally, the Deans of Canadian Medical Schools awarded Dr. Fried the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada “John Ruedy Award” for Innovation in Medical Education. He has won multiple teaching awards locally and nationally and has been a leader in Surgical Education activities at the American College of Surgeons, SAGES and other major specialty groups.
Dr. Fried has served as President of the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES), the Canadian Association of General Surgeons, the Central Surgical Association, and James IV Association of Surgeons (Canadian Section). He is on the Executive Committee of the Board of Regents of the American College of Surgeons and has served on the Boards of Directors of many of the major international specialty societies in the area of digestive surgery. In 2011, he was elected to the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. He has served on the editorial boards of 6 influential journals of surgery. Dr. Fried has given over 300 invited lectures internationally and published widely on minimally invasive GI surgery and surgical education.
