Dr. Jeffrey Shum MD, FRCSC, FACS

04/17/2026

Gallstone ileus is an uncommon cause of intestinal obstruction. This patient presented several times to the ER for gastroenteritis before surgery solved the problem!

12/12/2025

Christmas dinner will be so much more enjoyable with a cholecystectomy for biliary colic!

03/27/2024

Several years ago, Mr. Carswell was incredibly irritable when he was hungry. Sensing that something was wrong, he started checking his blood sugars and noticed that during these episodes, they were profoundly low. Further investigations with cross sectional imaging identified a 2cm lesion in the pancreas that was consistent with an insulinoma.

He was referred to my office and we performed a successful Whipple resection. He came by for a visit and is doing very well. His scars are barely noticeable and he no longer gets "Hangry"!

03/14/2024

Special thanks to Intuitive Surgical for bringing up the Da Vinci robot for a demo. After a brief introduction, I am convinced that this technology will be the future of surgery. The setup no longer takes hours and has become incredibly simple. I was able to confidently tie knots, cut and sew in a matter of minutes.The case cost is also quite reasonable and robotic assisted prostatectomy is already standard of care in many hospitals.

Robotic surgery in Sudbury would be awesome and would push this old dog to learn some new tricks!

03/12/2024

10 years ago, Mr. Saari had Stage 3 colon cancer. He underwent extensive surgery and chemotherapy at HSN. I have done his surveillance endoscopy regularly for the last decade and he's cancer free!

01/24/2023

Ms. Fry is a colon cancer survivor. She presented in 2016 with a change in her bowels and some bleeding, which prompted a colonoscopy. Sure enough, a cancer was found. She had a laparoscopic colectomy and now 7 years later she just finished another surveillance colonoscopy. All clear!

If you have worrisome symptoms don't ignore them. Get checked out!

01/09/2023

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6653674

I perform over 200 colonoscopies a year. Although most are normal, occasionally I identify an occult colon or re**al cancer.

With colon cancer being the second most common cause of cancer death in Canada, doctors say colonoscopies are an important procedure to have when necessary to catch cancer early.

12/27/2022

You might think that crashing a motorcycle would be a disaster, but for Mr. Menard, it was quite the opposite. In 2017, Mr. Menard was riding his bike when he was hit by a car. His motorcycle was totaled and he badly damaged his left hand. In the ER, he underwent CT scans of his chest, abdomen and pelvis He didn't have any acute abdominal trauma but the report described a surprise - a spot that was worrisome for pancreatic cancer.

To make a long story short, he was referred to me for further work-up and surgery. A Whipple resection was completed and sure enough there was a small Stage I pancreatic cancer. He is now over 5 years from that fretful day and he is doing well.

I highlight his case because surgery can control early pancreatic cancers. Unlike breast and colon cancer surveillance, there are no such screening programs for pancreatic cancers. The majority of the patients that I see with jaundice already have larger cancers with nodal disease.

For more information on pancreatic cancers, send me a message!

12/02/2022

The liver is the most common organ that colore**al cancer can metastasize to. Whenever possible, surgical resection is the preferred treatment. Chemotherapy, radiation and other multimodality options can improve prognosis in Stage 4 disease.

11/29/2022

A 75-year old female underwent a complicated laparoscopic cholecystectomy and her common bile duct was divided just below the confluence of the right and left hepatic ducts. She underwent Roux-en-Y hepaticojejunostomy and did well for 10 months. Unfortunately, she developed obstructive jaundice and a cholangiogram demonstrated stricture at the anastomosis.

A percutaneous transhepatic catheter was able to traverse the stricture and resolve her jaundice.

11/08/2022

Ask your primary care provider about Ontario's eConsult service. Highly under utilized and may save patients time and money!

eConsult is a secure web-based tool that allows physician or nurse practitioner timely access to specialist advice for all patients and often eliminates the ...