Surgical and Interventional Sciences (Non-Thesis): Oncology (M.Sc.) (45 credits)
Offered by: Surgery (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences)
Degree: Master of Science
Program credit weight: 45
Program Description
The M.Sc. in Surgical and Interventional Sciences; Non‐Thesis - Oncology program offers training in surgical research related to oncology and examines the broad range of disciplines in cancer research and care. In addition to an oncology practicum that focuses on a research project in a chosen cancer research discipline, there also will be a surgery research project with a focus on cancer.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Required Courses (24 credits)
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| EXSU 500 | Artificial Intelligence in Medicine . | 3 |
Artificial Intelligence in Medicine . Terms offered: Fall 2025 Introduction to artificial intelligence (AI) applied to issues in medical diagnosis, therapy selection and learning from health data. Various AI methods, electronic medical records, and ethical/security concerns. Machine learning approaches including deep learning and reinforcement learning without delving too deeply into the technical details. | ||
| EXSU 602 | Knowledge Management 2. | 3 |
Knowledge Management 2. Terms offered: Winter 2026 Critical elements required for the creation and delivery of digital slide presentations. | ||
| EXSU 623 | Surgery Research Project 2. | 6 |
Surgery Research Project 2. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Immersion into a specific research area and completion of a short project. Students will learn to develop a project and to demonstrate skills essential for analysis, evaluation and project management. | ||
| ONCO 610D1 | Fundamentals of Oncology and Cancer Research. | 3 |
Fundamentals of Oncology and Cancer Research. Terms offered: Fall 2025 A multidisciplinary approach to the entire spectrum of principles and practice in all fields of oncology, as well as to its research domains, from basic science to clinical and population health sciences. Content areas will include mechanisms of carcinogenesis, tumour pathology, cancer epidemiology, prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, psychosocial support, palliative care, global cancer control, and quality of cancer care services. The multidisciplinary nature of cancer research and clinical care and how research findings inform clinical practice and policymaking in cancer control will be illustrated. | ||
| ONCO 610D2 | Fundamentals of Oncology and Cancer Research. | 3 |
Fundamentals of Oncology and Cancer Research. Terms offered: Winter 2026 For description see ONCO 610D1. | ||
| ONCO 620 | Best Practices in Biomedical Research. | 3 |
Best Practices in Biomedical Research. Terms offered: Winter 2026 Overview of research ethics as well as best practices and guiding principles in planning, conducting and publishing a research investigation. Topics include (i) ethics in biomedical research, (ii) reading and reviewing papers, (iii)research integrity and (iv) scholarly publishing. Examples will be taken from the field of cancer research. The importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in enhancing the value of biomedical research will be illustrated. | ||
| ONCO 630 | Oncology Practicum. | 3 |
Oncology Practicum. Terms offered: Winter 2026 Involvement in a real-world research or quality improvement project with relevance to the students’ chosen area of focus. | ||
Complementary Courses (6 credits)
3 credits selected from:
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| EDPE 575 | Statistics for Practitioners. | 3 |
Statistics for Practitioners. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Understanding and interpreting basic statistical procedures used in basic and applied research, including graphs, measures of central tendency and variability, hypothesis testing, and correlations, t-tests, and basic ANOVA designs. | ||
| EPIB 507 | Biostats for Health Sciences. | 3 |
Biostats for Health Sciences. Terms offered: Summer 2025 Basic principles of statistical inference applicable to clinical, epidemiologic, and other health research. Topics include: methods of describing data, statistical inference for means, statistical inference for proportions, non-parametric statistics, correlation and introduction to linear regression. | ||
| EXSU 606 | Statistics for Surgical Research. | 3 |
Statistics for Surgical Research. Terms offered: Fall 2025 Review of statistics for surgical research. | ||
Or a 3 credits of a research design or statistics course at the 500 level or higher.
3 credits selected from:
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| BMDE 653 | Patents in Biomedical Engineering. | 3 |
Patents in Biomedical Engineering. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. This is a practical course on patents with emphasis on biomedical engineering applications. The course offers an overview of intellectual property, patents, and the patenting process. The course also provides insights into the strategies relating to commercialization and exploiting of patents, as well as enforcing patents. This course is designed to help biomedical engineers who will encounter patents in their work and needs to understand the nature and the scope of the patent system, how patents are obtained, and how to commercially exploit a patent. | ||
| BMDE 654 | Biomedical Regulatory Affairs - Medical Devices. | 3 |
Biomedical Regulatory Affairs - Medical Devices. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Regulatory strategies and quality management systems are critical for medical device development. This course provides an overview of regulatory requirements, and familiarize students with the important ISO and IEC standards pertaining to medical device development. This course will provide biomedical engineers with an understanding of the regulatory and quality requirements to translate a medical device idea into a commercial product, and will draw upon the expertise of invited speakers currently working in the medical devices industry. | ||
| BMDE 655 | Biomedical Clinical Trials - Medical Devices. | 3 |
Biomedical Clinical Trials - Medical Devices. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. This course will train biomedical engineers to understand the clinical and business aspects of transferring a medical device idea into a commercial product. This course provides an overview of the pre‐clinical and clinical testing of medical devices, clinical trials, reimbursement systems, market analysis, sales models, and business models, as pertaining to medical devices. This course will also cover the design of randomized trials, including statistical principles, hypothesis postulating, bias minimization, and randomization methods. | ||
| EDPE 637 | Issues in Health Professions Education. | 3 |
Issues in Health Professions Education. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. An overview of health professions education issues, including: learning and assessment in the clinical setting, medical core competencies, design, delivery and evaluation of health professions education programs, organization management of health professions education programs and systems, organizational change and leadership, clinical reasoning and decision making, interdisciplinary education. | ||
| EDPE 687 | Qualitative Methods in Educational Psychology. | 3 |
Qualitative Methods in Educational Psychology. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The logics of design and selection of phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, case study and mixed design methods with emphasis on data analysis in light of issues of research purpose, epistemology, reliability and validity. | ||
| EDPH 689 | Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. | 3 |
Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Terms offered: Summer 2025 Students will develop an understanding of teaching and learning as a process in which instruction is based on the learning to be accomplished. Students will design, develop, and evaluate a university course of their choice, and will develop facility and confidence in using teaching methods appropriate to their domains. | ||
| EPIB 521 | Regression Analysis for Health Sciences. | 3 |
Regression Analysis for Health Sciences. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The aim of this course is to provide students with basic principles of regression analyses applicable to the health sciences so that they can understand and use appropriate statistical regression techniques for continuous and discrete data. The course will cover: Linear regression: Regression for two or more explanatory variables, Polynomial regression, Dummy variables, Inference for regression parameters, Confounding and collinearity, Effect modification, Model-checking, Model selection, Prediction. Logistic and Poisson regression: Logistic regression for one or more variables, Interpreting odds ratios, Inference for logistic and Poisson regression parameters, Confounding and interactions in logistic regression, Model selection, Prediction. A very brief overview of survival analysis. | ||
| EPIB 681 | Global Health: Epidemiological Research. | 3 |
Global Health: Epidemiological Research. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. A review of selected epidemiological research focussing on global health and disease topics. Research will be mostly from developing countries and research methods will be highlighted. Case studies will be used to illustrate specific applications and challenges. | ||
| EXMD 609 | Cellular Methods in Medical Research. | 3 |
Cellular Methods in Medical Research. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Different cellular methods used in biomedical research, including spectroscopic, microscopic and immunological techniques as well as statistics. Lectures, some demonstrations by faculty as well as short seminars given by the students. | ||
| EXMD 610 | Molecular Methods in Medical Research. | 3 |
Molecular Methods in Medical Research. Terms offered: Winter 2026 Different molecular methods used in biomedical research, including chromatography, purification and analysis of proteins and nucleic acids, various techniques in molecular biology, transgenic technology, and stem cells. Lectures, some demonstrations, and short seminars given by the students. | ||
| EXSU 505 | Trends in Precision Oncology. | 3 |
Trends in Precision Oncology. Terms offered: Fall 2025 Introduction to the emerging paradigms in cancer detection, management and treatment. | ||
| EXSU 601 | Knowledge Management 1. | 3 |
Knowledge Management 1. Terms offered: Fall 2025 Critical elements required for the preparation and evaluation of abstracts and full-length manuscripts. | ||
| EXSU 603 | Surgical Education Foundations. | 3 |
Surgical Education Foundations. Terms offered: Fall 2025, Winter 2026 Critical overview of key educational and educational psychology theories and assessment principles to guide surgical education. Different surgical education environments analyzed and evaluated using theory, empirical evidence, and assessment practices. | ||
| EXSU 605 | Biomedical Research Innovation. | 3 |
Biomedical Research Innovation. Terms offered: Fall 2025, Winter 2026 Introduction to the novel and/or emerging technologies in the field of biomedical research. | ||
| EXSU 620 | Surgical Innovation 1. | 3 |
Surgical Innovation 1. Terms offered: Fall 2025 The process of surgical innovation and acquisition of hands-on skills necessary to work within a multi-disciplinary team in the creation of a novel, need driven, and marketable prototype used in the care of the surgical patient. This is the first of a 3 part course introducing concepts and performing needs analyses. | ||
| EXSU 684 | Signal Transduction. | 3 |
Signal Transduction. Terms offered: Fall 2025 A study of signal transduction. | ||
| FMED 525 | Foundations of Translational Science. | 3 |
Foundations of Translational Science. Terms offered: Winter 2026 An overview of multidisciplinary research that bridges significant gaps between basic, clinical medicine and public policy that enables a translation of knowledge to practice. | ||
| FMED 619 | Program Management in Global Health and Primary Health Care. | 3 |
Program Management in Global Health and Primary Health Care. Terms offered: Winter 2026 Program management design, theory, methods and practical applications in both domestic and global health settings, with a focus on primary health care in order to achieve rapid scale-up of effective health interventions towards universal coverage while strengthening health systems for sustained impact. | ||
| ONCO 611 | Proteomics for Precision Medicine. | 3 |
Proteomics for Precision Medicine. Terms offered: Winter 2026 Proteomic applications in medicine, including an introduction to mass spectrometry and related state-of-the-art proteomics techniques, and how these techniques can be used to answer important medical questions using clinical samples. The determination of levels and post-translational modifications of diagnostic/prognostic protein markers, the concentration of protein therapeutics in plasma, the simultaneous imaging of multiple proteins on tissue slices by MALDI-MS, and global proteome and phosphoproteome analyses to study signaling pathways. Additionally, strategies for data analysis and data interpretation using modern bioinformatic tools. | ||
| ONCO 615 | Principles and Practice of Clinical Trials. | 3 |
Principles and Practice of Clinical Trials. Terms offered: Fall 2025 An overview of the design, conduct and analysis of clinical trials. Topics include types of clinical trials, study designs, practical considerations when setting up a clinical trial, ethics, regulatory requirements, trial monitoring, data management, investigator responsibilities and statistical analysis. | ||
| ONCO 625 | Quality Improvement Principles and Methods. | 3 |
Quality Improvement Principles and Methods. Terms offered: Fall 2025 Principles and methodology of quality improvement in the delivery of health services with a focus on clinical care in oncology. Topics include developing and conducting quality improvement initiatives, data collection, data analysis and implementation of change in clinical practice. | ||
| ONCO 635 | Qualitative and Psychosocial Health Research. | 3 |
Qualitative and Psychosocial Health Research. Terms offered: Fall 2025 An overview of the theoretical, methodological and analytical skillsets required to design, conduct and analyze qualitative health research studies, with emphasis on psychosocial oncology and palliative care research. | ||
| ONCO 645 | Seminars in Global Oncology. | 3 |
Seminars in Global Oncology. Terms offered: Winter 2026 Identification of the challenges and strategies for addressing cancer prevention, diagnosis and care, as well as cancer research and education from an international perspective. | ||
| PHGY 518 | Artificial Cells. | 3 |
Artificial Cells. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Physiology, biotechnology, chemistry and biomedical application of artificial cells, blood substitutes, immobilized enzymes, microorganisms and cells, hemoperfusion, artificial kidneys, and drug delivery systems. PHGY 517 and PHGY 518 when taken together, will give a complete picture of this field. However, the student can select one of these. | ||
| PHGY 550 | Molecular Physiology of Bone. | 3 |
Molecular Physiology of Bone. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Students will develop a working knowledge of cartilage and bone. Discussion topics will include: molecular and cellular environment of bone; heritable and acquired skeletal defects; research models used to study metabolic bone disease. | ||
| PPHS 511 | Fundamentals of Global Health. | 3 |
Fundamentals of Global Health. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. This exciting and interactive course aims to give students the opportunity to broaden their understanding and knowledge of global health issues, including global burden of diseases, determinants of health, transition in health and drivers of such transition, challenges in healthcare delivery in resource-limited settings, and the variety of agencies and actors engaged in addressing global health challenges. The course consists of lectures, case studies, debates, discussions and small group work. | ||
| PPHS 528 | Economic Evaluation of Health Programs. | 3 |
Economic Evaluation of Health Programs. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Concepts and methods used to carry out economic evaluations of health programs and interventions, including public health interventions, pharmaceuticals, and other health care interventions. Includes topics such as calculation of unit costs, measurement of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) and assessment of uncertainty in cost-effectiveness analysis. | ||
| PPHS 529 | Global Environmental Health and Burden of Disease. | 3 |
Global Environmental Health and Burden of Disease. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. This course presents the grand challenges in global health from environmental and occupational risks along with the multi-disciplinary methods used to identify, control, and prevent them. It will introduce students to knowledge and skills in core disciplines of environmental health and approaches to environmental risk recognition, control and prevention in a global context. | ||
Electives (15 credits)
15 credits at the 500 level or higher may be chosen from the course list above or from other courses. The courses should have a surgery or oncology related theme. Selections to be approved by the director of the program or advisor.