Dr Jason Williams

In the Media

Stories from the practice.

Dr. Jason Williams — QEII Foundation feature

QEII Times · Oct 19, 2018 · Allison Lawlor

Giving patients the upper hand

Moving outside the OR for faster treatment

Yarmouth County resident Claudette d'Entremont couldn't have been happier to have her hand surgery completed within hours, allowing her to make her long trip home from Halifax that same day. "Everything went really smoothly," says Claudette. "Everything went really fast."

Thanks to an innovative change made by the QEII Health Sciences Centre's plastic surgery team, minor hand surgeries like Claudette's are now being done in an outpatient setting, rather than in the operating room. The change is saving patients time and resulting in faster recoveries, freeing up space in the OR for more critical surgeries and using health care resources more effectively.

"We always want to provide better, more timely care for our patients."— Dr. Jason Williams

A 2017 study by Dr. Joshua Gillis and Dr. Williams found it would be far more effective — and cost as much as 400 per cent less — to complete plastic surgery cases involving the hand in an outpatient setting. Since the first procedure outside the OR in September 2017, Dr. Williams and his team now do as many as five hand and finger fracture surgeries per week in their dedicated room.

Read on QEII Times
BRA Day 2018

CTV Atlantic · BRA Day 2018

BRA Day benefits: Raising awareness about breast reconstruction

Breast Reconstruction Awareness Day, or BRA Day, is a worldwide initiative that began in 2011. The goal of the day is to provide accurate information to help women make informed choices about breast reconstruction.

"In the U.S, about 40 per cent of people who get mastectomies get breast reconstruction. In Canada, to the best of our knowledge, it's less than 10 per cent," says Dr. Jason Williams, one of the plastic surgeons involved in Halifax's BRA Day event.

"Some people think it's a cosmetic operation and we truly believe it's not that. It's truly a reconstructive operation in the greatest sense, because you're losing a part of you and we have the opportunity to put you back together."

Dr. Williams says some of the information out there about specific techniques is outdated and there are many new and sophisticated procedures available — including one-stage implant-based reconstruction using acellular dermis at the time of mastectomy.