Members of the McMaster community figure prominently among 135 Canadian leaders to be appointed to the Order of Canada, as recently announced by Governor General of Canada Mary Simon.
McMaster University professor Mehran Anvari has been named an officer of the Order of Canada for his decades of research in telerobotic surgery to help patients in remote regions.
A visit to Nunavut in the 1990s helped inspire Anvari to develop robotic surgery to provide operative care to patients from a distance.
“While this award is a tremendous honour for both myself and my colleagues at McMaster and St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, it began with a primary goal to improve access to quality health care for all Canadians, particularly those living in remote parts of the country,” said Anvari, a professor of surgery and founding member and past president of McMaster’s Minimally Invasive Robotic Association.
Anvari and his team have successfully performed a series of complex telerobotic surgeries between St. Joseph’s Hospital and North Bay. They have also developed and commercialized tele-operable and medical robots, and are now working toward creating an autonomous system using artificial intelligence.
“This goal is yet some distance away and a lot more work is ahead to achieve it,” says Anvari.
Anvari is the scientific director and CEO of the Centre for Surgical Invention and Innovation, and the founding director of both the Centre for Minimal Access Surgery and the McMaster Institute for Surgical Invention, Innovation and Education.
