Recognizing our 2025 Senior Promotions

Dr. Faraj Abdallah, a Clinician Investigator with Lakeridge Health Ajax Hospital, focuses on modifying anesthetic techniques to optimize post-surgical short- and long-term patient outcomes through the use of regional anesthesia interventions and the prolongation of their benefits. Particularly, he is interested in preventing the transition from acute to persistent post-surgical pain, optimizing pain management following arthroplasty, and conducting knowledge synthesis to inform evidence-based guidelines. His innovations include a novel paravertebral block technique and a teaching phantom model, both of which were developed to improve acute post-surgical pain and enhance the quality of recovery after mastectomy. A second interest of Dr. Abdallah's is extending analgesia from single-shot nerve blocks and mitigating rebound pain, explored through studies on nerve block adjuncts, such as dexamethasone and dexmedetomidine.

Dr. Hance Clarke is Director of Pain Services and Medical Director of the Pain Research Unit at Toronto General Hospital, with a faculty appointment at the University of Toronto’s Institute of Medical Sciences. He is President of the Canadian Pain Society and the Canadian Consortium for the Investigation of Cannabinoids. He currently holds the GoodHope Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Chair in Translational Medicine, as well as a Canada Research Chair in Chronic Pain, Mental Health & Substance Use by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Heath (CAMH). A graduate of the Royal College Clinician Scientist Program, Dr. Clarke’s wide-ranging research includes identifying novel acute pain treatments following major surgery, identifying the factors involved in the transition of acute postsurgical pain to chronic pain, and identifying risk factors associated with persistent opioid use and poor health related quality of life after major surgery. Over the past decade he has a focused research interest in the clinical use of cannabis, aiming to balance benefits and risks. He is internationally recognized for developing the Toronto General Hospital Transitional Pain Service.

Dr. Jason Maynes serves as Chief of Anesthesia and Pain Medicine and Associate Chief of Perioperative Services (Research) at the Hospital for Sick Children. He also holds the Curtis Joseph and Harold Groves Chair in Anesthesia and Pain Medicine. Dr. Maynes’ research centers on finding new ways to quantify drug action, both therapeutic and toxic, including how to improve the clinical effect of anesthetics and pain medications. His lab, currently funded by the CIHR, NSERC, Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Research Fund and The Labatt Family Heart Center, in addition to funding from pharmaceutical and venture capital groups, has developed new therapies for heart failure, modeling cardiac function using stem-cell derived tissue, and has created platform technologies that measure cardiomyocyte function for the purposes of drug discovery. With a background in biophysics and pharmacology from institutions including UC Berkeley and Los Alamos National Lab, his work has led to multiple patents in heart failure treatment, cardiomyocyte function measurement, and antiviral therapies.

Dr. Fahad Alam is an anesthesiologist and Clinician Educator at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. With a Diploma in Medical Education, an MHSc in Translational Research, and after completing a fellowship at the Wilson Centre for Research in Medical Education, he is known for his excellence in teaching, wellness advocacy, and simulation-based education. He currently serves as chair of the Simulation and Education section of the Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society (CAS). Dr. Alam established the Resident Wellness and Resident Experience Audit Committees, both nationally recognized, and co-founded the Collaborative Human Immersive Interactions Lab (CHISIL), where his research investigates wellness, ergonomics, and medical education, including manikin-based and virtual simulations to improve patient care and to enhance the effectiveness of anesthesia techniques. He has developed multiple medical curricula and is also leading clinical trials while holding leadership positions locally and nationally.

Dr. Ghislaine Douflé, an anesthesiologist and intensivist, completed her residency in Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine in Paris, France, followed by a Cardiac Anesthesia and Critical Care Fellowship at Toronto General Hospital. Since joining the Interdepartmental Division of Critical Medicine at the University of Toronto in 2013, she has been appointed Education Lead of the Medical/Surgical ICU at Toronto General Hospital. She is known for her leadership in the advanced critical care echocardiography curriculum and fellowship of the Interdepartmental Division of Critical Medicine of the University of Toronto and is fully certified in transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography. Her main interests lie in medical education and echocardiography, with a special focus on extracorporeal life support (ECLS).

Dr. Yasmine Hoydonckx, Staff Anesthesiologist and Pain Physician at Toronto Western Hospital, Women’s College Hospital and Sinai Health System, is a recognized leader in pain medicine, with a particular focus on craniofacial pain. She is the founder of the Craniofacial Pain Program at the Toronto Academic Pain Medicine Institute and Canada’s first multidisciplinary Spontaneous Intracranial Hypotension (SIH) Program at the University Health Network. Her research, which is funded by the Canadian Pain Society and American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine (ASRA-PM) among others, focuses on transforming craniofacial pain and SIH care across Canada and beyond. She holds leadership roles in prominent anesthesia and pain societies and has authored over 20 peer-reviewed publications.

Dr. James Khan, inaugural holder of the Anesthesia and Pain Management Professorship in Perioperative Sciences, is a Clinician Scientist practicing at Mount Sinai Hospital. After completing training in Toronto and a Pain Medicine fellowship at Stanford, he returned to the University of Toronto with a focus on preventing the transition from acute to chronic pain, particularly in cancer surgery. He directs the Persistent Breast Cancer Pain Clinic at Mount Sinai Hospital and leads the PLAN Trial, an international multicenter randomized controlled study involving 1,602 patients that evaluates intraoperative intravenous lidocaine infusion as a strategy to prevent persistent pain after breast cancer surgery. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles and holds leadership roles as Research Lead for U of T’s Division of Pain Medicine and Co-Director of Research at the Toronto Academic Pain Medicine Institute.