Dr. Toni Zhong

Wendy Lack WOA Scientific Award

Dr. Toni Zhong, M.D., FRCS, MHS is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery, and the inaugural Belinda Stronach Chair in Breast Cancer Reconstruction at University Health Network (UHN). She is also the Clinical and Research Director for the Breast Reconstruction Program at UHN and Mount Sinai Hospitals, leading centres for advanced techniques in breast reconstruction in North America. She was recruited by University of Toronto in November 2008 from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. In 2011, she also obtained her Masters of Health Sciences in Clinical Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health.

To complement her clinical expertise in the field of breast reconstructive surgery, her research aims to improve the access of women to optimized techniques of post-mastectomy reconstruction through clinical trials and health services research. In 2012, she was awarded the prestigious 2012 Career Development Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncologists. She holds a five-year Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR) grant and leads a national team to examine barriers to breast reconstruction surgery across Canada. She was also awarded the highly competitive CIHR New Investigator Award in 2015. Recently, she was appointed as the Provincial Lead in the development of clinical guidelines to set new provincial standards for breast cancer reconstruction in Ontario. She currently has over 75 peer-reviewed publications in high impact oncology and surgical journals, holds 5 active national level research grants, and numerous Canadian and American Plastic Surgery Foundation Funds.

Dr. Zhong is also active in humanitarian activities. She is one of the founding members of Reconstructing Women International, a non-profit international humanitarian organization and annually leads international surgical teams overseas. She is a co-founder the UHN Helps Fund, a humanitarian fund to support patients from developing countries to receive their life-saving or life-enhancing surgeries at UHN. To recognize her volunteerism, she was awarded the Dean’s Alumni Award in Community Service from University Of Western Ontario in 2018.     

For more information, visit myreconstruction.ca