Jacob Langer

Dr. Jacob C. Langer is a Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto and currently practices at the Hospital for Sick Children. He was educated and trained at the University of Toronto and the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. He did research fellowships at the University of California, San Francisco and McMaster University, funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health, the Medical Research Council of Canada, and the McLaughlin Foundation.

Dr. Langer was an Assistant Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics at McMaster University and a pediatric surgeon at the Children’s Hospital at Chedoke-McMaster from 1989 to 1992. He then moved to St. Louis and became an Associate Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics at Washington University and a pediatric surgeon at St. Louis Children’s Hospital from 1992 to 1999. He came back to Canada in 1999 to become Professor of Surgery at the University of Toronto, and Chief of the Division of General Surgery at the Hospital for Sick Children. He is also the inaugural holder of the Robert M. Filler Chair in Pediatric Surgery.

Dr. Langer was named the Canadian James IV travelling fellow in 2007 after receiving the coveted Innovative Scientist of the Year award from the St. Louis Academy of Science in 1995. He has published over 50 book chapters and 230 articles in peer-reviewed journals on a range of subjects. His main areas of interest are the natural history and management of congenital anomalies identified during pregnancy, particularly congenital diaphragmatic hernia and defects of the abdominal wall, as well as the creation of novel approaches to the treatment of children with Hirschsprung disease and other intestinal disorders. He has travelled extensively for pediatric surgical operations and lectures on these and other subjects.

Dr. Langer has been on the faculty of the Washington University Institute of Minimally Invasive Surgery and the McMaster University Centre for Minimal Access Surgery and has recently edited a textbook on Minimal Access Surgery in Children. He has been on the Medical Advisory Boards of the American Pseudo-obstruction and Hirschsprung’s Disease Society and the Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Society. He has also been a member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Pediatric Surgery, Pediatric Endosurgery and Innovative Techniques, and Pediatric Surgery International. Dr. Langer has also held positions as the Chair of the American Pediatric Surgical Association Informatics and Nominating committees and has also sat on the Fetus and Newborn Committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Practice, Fetal Therapy, Program, and Critical Care Committees of APSA.

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