HOMER TIEN

Homer Tien

About Dr. Homer Tien

Dr. Homer Tien is a sta surgeon at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, as well as an Associate Scientist with the Evaluative Sciences, Trauma, Emergency & Critical Care Research Program with the Sunnybrook Research Institute. Dr. Tien’s research and clinical work focuses on the improvement of health care delivery for injured soldiers on the battle eld.

Efforts Abroad

Dr. Tien’s first mission was in 1996, when he was the first medical officer posted to the Canadian military counter-terrorism team on the NATO mission in Bosnia. By 2006, he was the first Canadian surgeon deployed to Kandahar and has since been deployed there for five more missions, often for months in length. The combination of medical needs in a war-stricken and emergency context gave Dr. Tien exposure to amputations, emergency cricothyrotomies, and many other intricate procedures for which he eventually began the provision of training for other military medical technicians.

Dr. Tien currently leads the Canadian Forces research and clinical groups in trauma research. He collaborates with military trauma researchers from around the world to investigate treatment of trauma-associated coagulopathy. As well, his group is trying to improve how trauma care can be better delivered to frontline soldiers who are injured in combat.

In July 2012, the Canadian Minister of Defense presented Dr. Tien with the Canadian Forces Major Sir Frederick Banting Term Chair in Military Trauma Research. His other appointments include Medical Director of the Tory Regional Trauma Center at Sunnybrook, Lieutenant Colonel with the Canadian Forces Health Services, and National Practice Leader for the Canadian Forces Health Services for Trauma.