World-renowned surgeon says goodbye to operating room
Dr. Zane Cohen walked through the halls of Mount Sinai Hospital, a place he calls his second home, feeling “teary” and a “little sad” as he came into work last Tuesday.
The colorectal surgeon was hanging up his scrubs after his final two surgeries, almost 40 years after he first picked up a scalpel.
“I’m older,” he says. “And 73. I felt that I could still do the job but I wanted to leave when I was still at the top of my game.”
About 80 per cent of his practice is dealing with patients who have Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, both in the family of inflammatory bowel diseases.
“It’s a disease of the young,” he says.
This means he sees the same patients over and over again.
“You develop relationships with them, and their families and their parents because they’re young, too.”
Sheri Green was one of his first patients in 1978. Green underwent surgery then for a Kock Pouch (an artificial rectum created by the surgeon), a procedure brought to Canada by Cohen.
Almost four decades later, the pouch needed a slight adjustment.
When he talked with Green, his tone was soft, he listened closely, and nodded his head a few times. Cohen, she says, was always available — taking calls, answering questions and reassuring her.
“It’s kind of difficult,” Green says about Cohen’s retirement. “I really appreciate all he’s done for me.” Cohen’s parents were immigrants from Russia, who wanted him to be an accountant, a lawyer, a dentist or a doctor.
“Those were my choices,” he says with a laugh. “I think I was pushed — definitely pushed — towards medicine.”
After medical school at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine, he did his residency in the Gallie Program at the University of Toronto. From1990 to 2006, he was the surgeon-in-chief at Mount Sinai Hospital. He was also chair of the Division of General Surgery at the University of Toronto. He remembers his first surgery. “It was nerve-racking because you’re going from a student with a lot of backup to somebody who’s absolutely responsible,” he says. “You really switch.”
The patient also knew he was Cohen’s first surgery.
“And he was nervous,” he says. But the surgery went well, and Cohen still sees the patient because he comes back for followup visits.
When Cohen began as a resident, he says he was a resident in the hospital.
“So we were on every other night,” he says. “And when we were supposedly off we still carried a pager at home for our patients. How trainees do things now is completely different than it was.”
It’s a completely different culture now with younger surgeons, he says.
“They want more of their own time, which if I had to ask for more time in the ’70s, I would have been thrown out of the program probably,” he says with a laugh.
Over the years, Cohen’s patients (he estimates there are about 9,000) have shown their gratitude to him in ways he says he didn’t expect.
Patients have named their children after him, sent cards, flowers, photos and made donations. One particular patient’s family handed him a dozen red roses, and two envelopes. The first envelope held a card for the Jewish New Year, and the second had a cheque for $500,000.
“My jaw dropped to the floor,” he says.
That money went on to fund stateof-the-art equipment and start the Zane Cohen Centre for Digestive Diseases.
Apart from being a world renowned surgeon, Cohen was the face of calm during the media storm surrounding former mayor Rob Ford’s surgery in 2014.
“It was a very unique experience,” he says. “That kind of spotlight with the cameras in your face. I’ve never experienced it before.” On that Tuesday morning, he went through his familiar routine one last time. He washed his hands in the sink by the operating room. He put on his green scrubs and pale cream gloves.
In the operating room, he talked quietly with his colleagues as he operated, giving direction and answering questions.
Around 6 p.m. that evening, it came to an end. His wife, he says, is happy he’s retiring from surgery but doesn’t want him hanging around the house all day. So he won’t be cutting back completely. He’ll still see patients and do consultations.
“It’s the best job in the world,” Cohen says. “I’ve been lucky to have great people who look after me and support me. And now it’s time to pass the baton, so to speak.”