Surgical and Interventional Sciences (Ph.D.)
Offered by: Surgery (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences)
Degree: Doctor of Philosophy
Program Description
The Ph.D. in Surgical and Interventional Sciences focuses on the field of surgery and interventions. The program emphasizes research that involves innovative surgical techniques, patient management strategies, and the application of new technological advances in the medical field.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please refer to Visual Schedule Builder. A technical issue is causing the "Terms offered" field to incorrectly report "this course is not currently offered" for many courses in the Course Catalogue.
Thesis
A thesis for the doctoral degree must constitute original scholarship and must be a distinct contribution to knowledge. It must show familiarity with previous work in the field and must demonstrate ability to plan and carry out research, organize results, and defend the approach and conclusions in a scholarly manner. The research presented must meet current standards of the discipline; as well, the thesis must clearly demonstrate how the research advances knowledge in the field. Finally, the thesis must be written in compliance with norms for academic and scholarly expression and for publication in the public domain.
Required Courses (3 credits)
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| EXSU 700 | Comprehensive Examination. | 0 |
Comprehensive Examination. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. An examination that must be passed by all doctoral candidates in order to continue in the doctoral program. | ||
And:
3 credits from the following:
| 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. | ||
Complementary Courses (12 credits)
6 credits from the following:
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | ||
| EXMD 634 | Quantitative Research Methods. | 3 |
Quantitative Research Methods. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Topics covered include: 1) An overview of common research designs based on examples from research currently undertaken in the Division of Experimental Medicine; 2) Types of data arising from these designs; 3) Basic methods for data analysis; and 4) Application of these methods to student research projects. | ||
| 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 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 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 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 619 | The Hospital Environment. | 3 |
The Hospital Environment. Terms offered: Fall 2025 The process of surgical innovation and 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 second of a 3 part course introducing concepts and performing needs analyses focusing on the hospital environment and the close contact with its structure and patients. | ||
| 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 621 | Surgical Innovation 2. | 3 |
Surgical Innovation 2. Terms offered: Winter 2026 This course builds on key concepts and needs screening delivered and generated in EXSU 620 to develop 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. | ||
And 6 credits at the 500 level or higher in the student's specialty, selected in consultation with the Research Supervisory Committee.