Melissa Wood

Education

Melissa Wood is currently a third year General Surgery resident at the University of Saskatchewan. She completed her undergraduate degree as a BSc in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, in 2011. She went on to obtain her medical degree from the University of Alberta in 2015. She completed her first two years of General Surgery residency and then spent two dedicated years in research through the Clinical Investigator Program. During this time, she completed an MSc in Surgical Science and Practice at the University of Oxford.

Research Interests

Melissa has a diverse scope of research interests that span topics including surgical education, quality improvement, human factors, and surgical oncology. She is currently working on projects in surgical education and investigating the attainment of guideline directed surgical care for melanoma patients in Saskatchewan with the application of human factors.

Surgical clerkship is a significant transition associated with stress and challenges for medical students. She is working to investigate the perceptions of clerks and residents to the preparedness of clerks, to identify elements to include in an orientation video to help better prepare clerks for their surgery rotation during clerkship. This includes the creation of an orientation video to the surgical clerkship, with validation and evaluation of this tool.

Unpublished cancer registry data from 2013 to 2015 reveals that a proportion of melanoma patients in Saskatchewan did not receive guideline directed surgical care, according to their cancer Tumour-stage; this could represent an issue in the quality of care being delivered. Therefore, we set out to diagnose and understand problems that currently lead to reduced rates in the achievement of guideline directed surgical care for melanoma patients. Melissa is interested in mapping the melanoma care as it now occurs and using human factors methods to further understand the process of melanoma care in Saskatchewan. This will allow for identification, implementation, and study of quality improvement interventions, aimed at improving the care of melanoma patients in Saskatchewan.

Melissa looks forward to presenting some of her work related to melanoma care processes at the 2020 Society of Surgical Oncology meeting in March. After residency, she hopes to pursue a fellowship in Surgical Oncology and continue research in the fields of surgical education, human factors, and surgical oncology.

Selected Publications

2018                Schellenberg A, Wood M, Baniak N, Hayes P. Metastatic ductal carcinoma of the breast to colonic mucosa. BMJ Case Reports. 2018; http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2018-224216

2015                McNiven C, Switzer N, Wood M, Persad R, Hancock M, Forgie S, Dicken BJ. Central venous catheter repair is not associated with an increased risk of central line infection or colonization in intestinal failure pediatric patients. J Pediatr Surg. 2016;51(3):395-7. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpedsurg.2015.08.003

2015    Wood ML, Forgie SE. A first step to blended delivery: Introducing an online component to an infectious diseases course using a photography-based social media platform. Med Sci Educ. 2015;25(2);101-03. DOI: 10.1007/s40670-015-0103-0