{"id":133878,"date":"2025-09-10T14:02:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T14:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/133878\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T14:02:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T14:02:05","slug":"surgical-oncologist-sean-cleary-was-building-a-highly-advanced-robotic-surgery-program-in-toronto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/133878\/","title":{"rendered":"Surgical oncologist Sean Cleary was building a highly advanced robotic surgery program in Toronto"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr. Sean Cleary was a gifted surgical oncologist and generous educator, but what made him uniquely brilliant was his extraordinary ability to make people feel valued, cared for and inspired.Michelle Siu\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

A few years ago in Cincinnati, two cancer surgeons were watching a video of a minimally invasive liver surgery. The doctor who performed the operation, Adnan Alseidi, always welcomed feedback from his friend and surgical colleague Sean Cleary, a world-renowned expert in their field.<\/p>\n

Dr. Cleary\u2019s insightful comments left Dr. Alseidi feeling buoyant. It was only later that it dawned on Dr. Alseidi what had actually happened; he had just been schooled.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember feeling really good after his comments. But then I realized that he was actually telling me about something that I could\u2019ve done much better,\u201d Dr. Alseidi, an associate dean with the University of California San Francisco, recalled with a chuckle.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that was really amazing about him was how he could make you feel good, even if he was actually telling you that you did something wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never done that [error] again in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Dr. Alseidi, this encounter was classic Dr. Cleary. He was a gifted surgical oncologist and generous educator, but what made him uniquely brilliant was his extraordinary ability to make people feel valued, cared for and inspired \u2013 even while he was critiquing them or pushing them to be better. <\/p>\n

This constellation of talents made Dr. Cleary a beloved and effective leader, as well as a global star in hepatopancreatobiliary (HPB) surgery, a highly specialized field that treats cancers and other conditions involving the pancreas, liver and bile ducts. He has held leadership roles at major surgical societies \u2013 including being president of both the Canadian Association of General Surgeons and Americas Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association \u2013 and was a prolific researcher, with more than 190 papers bearing his name.<\/p>\n

Dr. Cleary spent much of his childhood abroad and worked for seven years in the United States, but Canada was always his home. In 2023, he returned from the U.S. to accept an appointment with the University of Toronto as the Langer Chair of the Division of General Surgery, supporting some 165 surgeons across nine hospitals. At the University Health Network, he was building one of Canada\u2019s largest and most advanced robotic surgery programs.<\/p>\n

Despite his unfathomably busy schedule, Dr. Cleary made time for everyone in his expansive orbit but was a family man above all, fiercely devoted to his wife and two sons. At Toronto General Hospital, where he worked as a surgical oncologist, he was known to his peers as a \u201csurgeon\u2019s surgeon,\u201d technically brilliant and unflappable. But he was widely adored; by everyone from the nurses, who became intimately acquainted with his boisterous laugh and love for the Tragically Hip, to the operating room attendants, who appreciated Dr. Cleary as the rare surgeon who always remembered their names. <\/p>\n

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Dr. Sean Cleary, second from right, while performing a surgical procedure to remove part of a patient’s liver, using a stereoscopic laparoscopy system.UNIVERSITY HEALTH NETWORK<\/p>\n

And for thousands of patients, Dr. Cleary was the source of profound comfort, even as they battled some of the deadliest cancers and conditions. \u201cDr. Cleary, an extremely busy man, gave me more time than any doctor I have ever met,\u201d George Emerson, a former patient who has a rare genetic disorder, wrote in an online essay. \u201cHe gave us scientific insights, practical advice and hope. He even made us laugh.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Emerson felt reassured that if anyone could save his life, it would be Dr. Cleary. But he never got a chance to try; on Aug. 10, just days after their first meeting, Dr. Cleary died after being pulled from the waters of Kempenfelt Bay in Barrie, Ont., where he was competing in a triathlon. <\/p>\n

He was 52. Dr. Cleary leaves behind his wife, Janice Clugston; beloved sons, Owen and Christian; parents, Eleanor and Michael Cleary; and sisters, Lisa Reid and Stephanie Cleary.<\/p>\n

Sean Patrick Cleary\u2019s life began on Nov. 1, 1972 in Toronto. His father worked for Proctor and Gamble, a career that uprooted the Cleary family every few years to far-flung European locales like England, Vienna and Brussels. <\/p>\n

Despite his itinerant childhood, Sean was a consistent straight-A student. His parents recalled how at the age of 10 or 11, they caught their son staying up late, reading textbooks under his covers with a flashlight.<\/p>\n

Even as a boy, he had an \u201cendless desire to learn\u201d and applied his technical mind to every pursuit, said his sister Ms. Reid. As a result, he excelled at everything he tried, including sports (especially tennis, skiing and hockey, his greatest love), music (singing, flute and piano) and theatre (Ms. Reid once watched her brother play Dr. Frank-N-Furter in a high school performance of The Rocky Horror Show).<\/p>\n

For Ms. Reid and her sister, their big brother was a best friend, protector and trusted confidant.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could be sitting in the midst of a loud restaurant with lots going on, and feel like you\u2019re the only person with his attention,\u201d Ms. Reid said. \u201cHe really had the ability to listen, without judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medical school was a natural progression for the teenager who excelled at math and science, and after attending Queen\u2019s University, he studied medicine at Western University, where he also met his wife. <\/p>\n

He did his surgical residency and HPB fellowship at the University of Toronto, quickly proving himself to be a rising star. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe always was on a higher level,\u201d recalls Carol Swallow, the RS McLaughlin Professor and chair of the Department of Surgery at U of T, who knew Dr. Cleary since he was a resident. \u201cHe had a great ability to perceive where the problems were, what the solutions could be and then negotiate and get things done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2016, Dr. Cleary was recruited to the prestigious Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., where he gained experience with robotic surgery.Andrew Jeffrey\/UNIVERSITY HEALTH NETWORK<\/p>\n

As a new hire at Princess Margaret Hospital, Dr. Cleary developed his own research program in cancer epidemiology. He also became keenly interested in minimally invasive surgery, which was still novel at the time. In a 2022 podcast interview, he remembered asking his superiors about pursuing this new approach for liver surgery. \u201cTheir response was kind of like, okay, that\u2019s nice, Sean. Good luck with that,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

So together with a few close friends, Dr. Cleary effectively taught himself to perform minimally invasive surgery by watching videos, seeking out weekend courses internationally, and practising on pigs before finally attempting it on human patients. \u201cWe were some of the first in Canada to do this stuff, and we did it together,\u201d said Alice Wei, a longtime friend and fellow HPB surgical oncologist. \u201cI think we really built a powerhouse in Toronto.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2016, Dr. Cleary was recruited to the prestigious Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., where he gained experience with robotic surgery, an area where Canada is woefully lagging. Together with Dr. Alseidi, he built a registry for minimally invasive liver resections in the Americas \u2013 a powerful resource that\u2019s grown to become the largest of its kind worldwide, according to Dr. Alseidi.<\/p>\n

His time in the U.S. also gave him a deeper appreciation for the Canadian health care system, he told Toronto Life magazine in April, 2025. After six years at Mayo, Dr. Cleary and his family decided to move home in 2023, amid a political climate that was increasingly anti-science and poised to re-elect Donald Trump as U.S. president.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took my car to get serviced in Rochester, and Fox News was playing on TV,\u201d he told Toronto Life, recalling the moment that crystallized his decision to repatriate. \u201cI tried to ignore it, but I just couldn\u2019t sit there. I ended up grabbing a cab rather than waiting any longer.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a UHN memorial for Dr. Cleary in late August, a room packed with devastated friends and colleagues grappled with the loss of someone who had been an \u201canchor.\u201d <\/p>\n

Timothy Jackson, UHN\u2019s division head of general surgery, implored his colleagues to honour Dr. Cleary\u2019s legacy by \u201cliving out the same spirit of excellence, humility and compassion that he showed us every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn moments when we doubted ourselves, he poured belief into us,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is why no matter who you are \u2013 whether you trained Sean or Sean trained you \u2013 he will always be remembered as a true mentor and role model for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can find more obituaries from The Globe and Mail here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To submit a memory about someone we have recently profiled on the Obituaries page, e-mail us at obit@globeandmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Dr. Sean Cleary was a gifted surgical oncologist and generous educator, but what…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392,2922],"class_list":{"0":"post-133878","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-noastack"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}