E130 Homer Tien on Ornge, Emergency Transport, COVID19 Vaccine Distribution & Leadership

Cold Steel: Canadian Journal of Surgery Podcast

Podcast transcript: https://www.canjsurg.ca/content/e130-homer-tien-ornge-emergency-transport-covid19-vaccine-distribution-leadership

Dr. Homer Tien is a trauma surgeon at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto. We were so excited to have him on the show because of the incredible work that he has done in multiple leadership roles, more recently as the president and CEO of ornge, Ontario’s air ambulance and transport service. Largely because of the amazing work he had done with ornge, Dr. Tien was also made in charge of the COVID19 vaccine distribution task force back in April 2021. This was a conversation about trauma care, paramedic services, and air ambulances, but even more importantly, we got to hear Dr. Tien’s insights on leadership.

Links:

1. Preventable Deaths From Hemorrhage at a Level I Canadian
Trauma Center. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Fernando-Spencer-Netto/publication/6585292_Preventable_Death_From_Hemorrhage_at_a_Level_I_Canadian_Trauma_Center/links/5a1d4cd50f7e9b2a5317123c/Preventable-Death-From-Hemorrhage-at-a-Level-I-Canadian-Trauma-Center.pdf

2. Ornge. https://www.ornge.ca/home

3. Amid third wave, U of T’s Homer Tien takes over province’s COVID-19 vaccine task force: CBC. https://www.utoronto.ca/news/amid-third-wave-u-t-s-homer-tien-takes-over-province-s-covid-19-vaccine-task-force-cbc

4. Clinical handover from emergency medical services to the trauma team: A gap analysis. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33084560/

5. Operation Remote Immunity 3.0 wraps up after coordinating nearly 200 vaccine clinics in 29 remote and isolated communities. https://www.canada.ca/en/indigenous-services-canada/news/2022/02/operation-remote-immunity-30-wraps-up-after-coordinating-nearly-200-vaccine-clinics-in-29-remote-and-isolated-communities.html

Bio:

Tien earned a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from Queen's University in 1989.In 1992, he graduated with a Doctor of Medicine from McMaster University. He then pursued residency training in family medicine before obtaining his Independent Practice Certificate in 1993. His training was sponsored by the Canadian Forces. After training, he was then posted with the Field Ambulance at CFB Petawawa, and served as the unit medical officer for the 1st Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment. While at RCR, he deployed to Croatia on Operation Harmony. He then deployed to Bosnia with IFOR on Operation Alliance. He then served with Canadian special forces at Dwyer Hill Training Centre as their first unit medical officer. He has also deployed to the Golan Heights, and has worked with Veterans Affairs in the recovery of RCAF airmen missing from World War II, in the Burma recovery mission.

He later underwent four years of further residency training in general surgery via the Canadian Forces and the University of Toronto from 1998 to 2002.

As a Canadian Forces surgeon, he also deployed to the NATO-led multinational stabilization force in Bosnia in 2003, to Kabul with ISAF in 2004, and multiple times to the Role 3 Multinational Medical Unit in Kandahar.

In 2007, he earned a Master of Science in clinical epidemiology from the University of Toronto.

He is currently the president and CEO of Ornge, an air ambulance non-profit based on Ontario. He also holds the rank of colonel in the Canadian Forces Health Services, associate professorship at the University of Toronto,and was the former director of Trauma Services at Sunnybrook's Tory Regional Trauma Centre. He is the first to hold the Canadian Forces Major Sir Frederick Banting Term Chair in Military Trauma Research.

In April 2021, Tien was appointed to head Ontario's COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Task Force for Phase 2 of the rollout