Residency Match Canada · Program Research Profile
University of Calgary Plastic Surgery
2026 Match
What the research profiles of this year's 3 incoming residents actually look like, by specialty relevance, presentations, and notable activity, not just publication count.
Program Director: Dr. Aaron Knox
3
spots filled this match cycle, unchanged from 3 in 2025. Every stat below describes this full cohort (n=3).
5.7
avg. confirmed publications
3.7
avg. first or second authored
2.0
avg. plastics relevant
Program context
Source: CaRMS program descriptions
Selection weights
Selection weights not published
What the program says it looks for
- A strong academic record
- Demonstrated interest in plastic surgery
- Professional personal attributes
- Evidence of academic potential, including scholarship, leadership, and teaching, which is considered first
- Extracurricular work, which is described as strongly weighted
Where research appears
File review values a track record of meaningful scholarly activity, though it is not required, and the interview impression of scholarly work is formed mainly from the file.
51 to 200
applicants per year
0 to 25%
interview invite rate
Inference, not the program's wording
Research has no separate published weight and appears inside the broader file and interview assessments. With a low invite rate, file review is selective, so research in the file could affect whether a candidate is invited, but the page does not show that research alone decides an interview. The program does not publish exact weights.
Gaps: Extracurricular work is described only as strongly weighted, which is not a percentage, and a further program goals paragraph was cut off in the source view.
Where this cohort came from
University of Calgary
University of Alberta
All three residents are Canadian medical graduates, and schools are shown as a set only because pairing them to individual profiles would make people identifiable in a cohort this small.
Per resident breakdown
Plastic surgery relevant
Other medical
One publicly indexed paper, second authored, in Clinical Cancer Research on establishing sarcoma cell lines. It sits outside plastic surgery, so the full bar is other medical. The count reflects publicly indexed work only.
Notable: holds a prior doctoral degree in a medical science field, consistent with the laboratory focus of this record. Also authored two conference abstracts from that earlier research, one as first author.
* Includes one paper published after match day.
All four papers are plastics relevant, centered on hand and nerve surgery, and all are first or second authored, appearing in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Global Open and Plastic Surgery. The set is a first-authored systematic review plus second-authored work on a validation study, a clinical technique study, and a case report, and the validation study of a rehabilitation tool is the one item that tests something new rather than reviewing existing work. One paper, dated June 2026, appeared after match day and was most likely listed on the original application as in preparation or pending publication, which is worth keeping in mind when benchmarking against this profile.
Additional items reported in the original research could not be independently confirmed and are excluded from the counts above.
Notable: has presented research at the national level. Background also includes business training and high-level athletics.
* Includes one paper published after match day.
Highest volume in the cohort by a wide margin, but the weight sits in critical care and public health, in journals such as Critical Care Medicine and the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia. All six first or second authored papers are in those fields, including a randomized feasibility trial and a meta-analysis, while the two plastics relevant papers, a burn care proof of concept in the Journal of Burn Care and Research and a pediatric craniofacial outcomes study in the Journal of Craniofacial Surgery, are middle authored. One paper dated April 2026 appeared after match day and was most likely listed on the original application as in preparation or pending publication, which is worth keeping in mind when benchmarking against this profile.
Notable: co-created two one-page pediatric education infographics for an open-access learning resource. Also has two first-authored conference abstracts.
Reading this data
Volume and specialty focus diverge across this cohort: PGY1-C holds 12 of the 17 confirmed publications but only two are plastics relevant, while all four of PGY1-B's papers are plastics relevant and first or second authored. Six of the 17 are plastics relevant overall, and PGY1-A's single paper comes from laboratory based cancer research. Program weightings may change from year to year.
All data on this page was gathered from publicly available sources and verified to a high but not absolute degree of confidence. This profile is intended to give prospective applicants a general sense of what previously matched residents looked like, not to serve as a definitive or exhaustive record.
