The Ottawa Division of Thoracic Surgery contributes nationally and internationally with research excellence. Collectively, surgeons in the Thoracic Division have obtained millions in competitive peer-reviewed grants as principal investigators (PIs), and now lead multiple innovative research projects focussed on quality and efficiency of care. Dr. Villeneuve has received two grants as PI in the past 5 years, to explore the feasibility and safety of same day discharge after sublobar lung resection, and to evaluate the means we process and evaluate margins of tissue to ensure complete lung cancer resection. Dr. Gilbert has obtained three grants as PI focussing on using artificial intelligence (AI) predictive modelling to help manage the problem of post-operative air leak after lung resection, as well as a trial to prevent this common postoperative adverse event.  Dr. Maziak has received grant to help evaluate the role of positron emission tomography (PET) in the diagnosis of lung cancer. Dr. Jones has obtained a grant to focus on studying the costs of post-operative adverse events, and to perform value-based quality improvement after thoracic surgery. Dr. Seely received a University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine Tier 1 Clinical Research Chair (2020-2025), in Innovative use of clinical data to monitor systems and improve patient care. He has obtained multiple grants, including two from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, in the past 5 years in order to evaluate and improve a national thoracic surgery learning network, initiate an enhanced recovery after thoracic surgery program, initiate a multicentre feasibility randomized controlled trial of a novel AI-based predictive tool to assist extubation decision making, pioneer the development of an AI-based tool to assist management of donation after circulatory death, evaluate the association between rhythms and human entropy production. All surgeons contribute as collaborators to innumerable other projects, helping to enrol patients in leading trials and improve care. An outstanding team of ten research staff, many with over ten years of service, assist the Division with all aspects of research. Tens of publications produced from these research programs annually lead to internationally relevant contributions, and invited presentations around the world. 

A focus on high quality care has been at the heart of Ottawa Thoracic Division since its inception. Since 2008, to help measure quality of care directly and continuously, the Division initiated the monitoring of all postoperative adverse events after all procedures. All adverse events and their severity were defined and monitored (Ottawa thoracic adverse events classification now used by many internationally). This monitoring has enabled a variety of studies to help predict and prevent adverse events, as well as novel quality improvement methods based on identifying practice that is demonstrating positive deviance (i.e. best performance). This experience and practice enabled the creation of a software tool that facilitates data collection and multimodal quality improvement review, now adopted by over 12 other thoracic surgery centers in Canada, forming the CATS Database and National Learning Network.  Thus, at the heart of this project is simply the act of measuring adverse events as a measure of quality of care, continuously, for all patients. This project, led by Dr Seely, has been at the heart of quality improvement for the Division; however, as this project requires weekly input and discussion of all thoracic staff and residents, full Divisional participation and commitment is essential, and has led to the success of this quality focused program. 

The Ottawa Division of Thoracic surgery has a legacy of leadership involving its members. Dr. Maziak is the current Thoracic Lead for the provincial organization, Ontario Health Network, is a past-President of the Canadian Association of Thoracic surgeons (CATS), past Chair of the Royal College Thoracic Surgery Specialty Committee, and is Co-Chair of the Ottawa multidisciplinary Community of Practice for both lung and foregut cancers. Dr. Sundaresan is former Division Head for Ottawa Thoracic Surgery, and is the current Ottawa Hospital Surgeon-in-chief and is Chair of the Ottawa Department of Surgery (2012-2024). Dr. Gilbert is former Division Head for Ottawa Thoracic Surgery, and a current Royal College thoracic surgery examiner. Dr. Villeneuve is past Program Director for CATS, and is the current Program Director for the Ottawa Division of Thoracic Surgery. Dr. Seely is a past-President of CATS, current Director of the CATS National Database and Learning Network, current Director for Innovation for the Ottawa Department of Critical Care, and is the current Division Head for Ottawa Thoracic Surgery. Although not unusual in general in thoracic, leadership and contributing to organizations beyond Ottawa appears a significant part of Ottawa Thoracic Surgery.