Medical School

Doctor of Medicine, University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine, 1994

Residency

Core Internal Medicine, University of Toronto, 1994-1998

Chief Medical Resident, St. Michael's Hospital, 1997-1998

Fellowship

Multidisciplinary Critical Care Training Program, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, 1998-2000 (Chief Fellow 1999-2000)

Charles M. Schertz Research Fellow, Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, 1999-2000

Graduate School

Master of Education, Higher Education Stream, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto, 2001-2005

Other Academic Appointments

Assistant Professor of Medicine and Clinician-Educator, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto

Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ontario Institute of Technology

Former Positions

Staff Intensivist, Intensive Care Unit and Medical Director, Program for Resuscitation Education and Patient Safety, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2000-2010

Flight Physician, Canadian Global Air Ambulance, 2002-2007

Flight Physician, Skyservice Air Ambulance, 2000-2002

Academic/Research Interests

Medical Education

Simulation and Crisis Resource Management Education

Septic Shock

Prehospital, Transport and Retrieval Medicine

Disaster Medicine

Awards

2018 Certificate of Merit Award, Canadian Association for Medical Education

2017 Regional Preceptor Teaching Award, Department of Medicine, Queen’s University

2011 Special Recognition Award, Society of Critical Care Medicine

2010 Presidential Citation, Society of Critical Care Medicine

2009 Elected as Fellow, American College of Critical Care Medicine

2009 Presidential Citation, Society of Critical Care Medicine

2008 Presidential Citation, Society of Critical Care Medicine

2007 Best Poster Award (co-author), 3rd International Conference on Rapid Response Systems: Team Systems for Safety, Pittsburgh, PA.

2006 Karen McGibbon Award of Excellence, Mount Sinai Hospital (awarded to Acute Resuscitation Committee, Chair of Committee)

2005 Award for Individual Teaching Excellence, The Wightman-Berris Academy University of Toronto/Mount Sinai Hospital & University Health Network (Undergraduate Education Category)

2004 Outstanding Teaching Award, Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital

2002 Outstanding Teaching Award, Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital

2000 Merit Award, Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto

2000 Research Poster Award, 20th International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, Brussels, Belgium

Book Chapters/Editorships

Book Chapters

1. Wax RS, Angus DC. The Epidemiology and Outcome of Patients with Sepsis: Clear as Mud. In: Baue AE, Berlot G, Gullo A, Vincent JL (Eds) Sepsis and Organ Dysfunction. Springer-Verlag Italia, Milano, pp 123-135, 1999. (Principal Author)

2. Wax RS, Angus DC. The molecular genetics of sepsis: clinical epidemiology considerations. In: Vincent JL (Ed) 2000 Yearbook of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine. Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, pp 3-17, 2000 (Principal Author)

3. Wax RS, Angus DC, Knaus W. Quantifying Risk in Sepsis: A Review of Illness Severity and Organ Dysfunction Scoring. In: Vincent JL, Carlet J, Opal SM (Eds) The Sepsis Text. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, pp 81-96. Feb 2002. (Principal Author)

4. Wax RS. Orientation to the Critical Care Response Team. In: Hodder R (Ed) Critical Care Response Team Provider Manual. Canadian Resuscitation Institute, Ottawa, pp 1-12, 2006. (Principal Author)

5. Kim J, Wax RS. Crisis Resource Management. In: Hodder R (Ed) Critical Care Response Team Provider Manual. Canadian Resuscitation Institute, Ottawa, pp 13-20, 2006. (Co-principal Author)

6. Wax RS. Communication and Conflict Resolution. In: Hodder R (Ed) Critical Care Response Team Provider Manual. Canadian Resuscitation Institute, Ottawa, pp 21-28, 2006. (Principal Author)

7. Wax RS. Ethics and Advanced Directives. In: Hodder R (Ed) Critical Care Response Team Provider Manual. Canadian Resuscitation Institute, Ottawa, pp 29-34, 2006. (Principal Author)

8. Wax RS. Encounter Simulation. In: Hodder R (Ed) Critical Care Response Team Provider Manual. Canadian Resuscitation Institute, Ottawa, pp 35-40, 2006. (Principal Author)

9. Wax RS. The ABCs of Air Medical Resource Management. In: Blumen IJ and Lemkin DL (Eds) Principles and Direction of Air Medical Transport. Air Medical Physician Association, Salt Lake City, Utah, pp 541-547, 2006. (Principal Author)

10. Wax RS. A Primer in Simulation: Dying 1000 Deaths for Patient Safety. In: Blumen IJ and Lemkin DL (Eds) Principles and Direction of Air Medical Transport. Air Medical Physician Association, Salt Lake City, Utah, pp 333-337, 2006. (Principal Author)

11. Wax RS. Multinational perspectives on End-of-Life Issues in the Intensive Care Unit (Canada) In: Crippen D (Ed) End-of-Life Communication in the ICU: A Global Perspective. Springer, New York, NY, USA, pp 5-9, 2008. (Principal Author)

12. Wax RS. Difficulty Breathing/Hypoxia: An Approach for Rapid Response Teams. In: Rapid Response Team Training. Society of Critical Care Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA, pp 63-82, 2008. (Principal Author)

13. Wax RS. Anatomy and Function of Rapid Response Systems: Ramp Up, Ramp Down. In: Rapid Response Team Training. Society of Critical Care Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA, pp 15-27, 2008. (Principal Author)

14. Wax RS. Key Elements of an RRS. In: Sebat F (Ed) Designing, Implementing and Enhancing a Rapid Response System. Society of Critical Care Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA, pp 31-42, 2009. (Principal Author)

15. Sebat F, Lighthall GK, Baldisseri MR, et al (#4) In: Sebat F (Ed) Designing, Implementing and Enhancing a Rapid Response System. Society of Critical Care Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA, pp 99-184, 2009. (Co-principal Author)

16. Wax RS. Canada: Where are we going? In: Crippen DW (Ed) ICU Resource Allocation in the New Millennium: Will We Say No? Springer, New York, NY, USA, pp 123-130, 2013. (Principal Author)

17. Geiling J, Wax R, Mohr LC. Chemical Agents of Mass Destruction. In: Irwin and Rippe’s Intensive Care Medicine, 8th Edition.  Walters Klower, Philadelphia, PA, USA, pp 1169-1178, 2018. (Co-principal Author)

Editorship

1. Section Editor, Medical Conditions, Nancy Caroline’s Emergency Care in the Streets (Canadian Edition), Eds. Burgess RJ & MacDonald R, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, Toronto, 2009

2. Farmer JC, Wax RS, Baldisseri MR (Eds), Preparing Your ICU for Disaster Response, Society of Critical Care Medicine, Mount Prospect, IL, USA, 2012

Peer-Reviewed Publications

1: Morrison LJ, Brooks SC, Dainty KN, Dorian P, Needham DM, Ferguson ND, Rubenfeld GD, Slutsky AS, Wax RS, Zwarenstein M, Thorpe K, Zhan C, Scales DC; Strategies for Post-Arrest Care Network. Improving use of targeted temperature management after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: a stepped wedge cluster randomized controlled trial. Crit Care Med. 2015 May;43(5):954-64.  PubMed PMID: 25654175.        

2: Balki M, Chakravarty S, Salman A, Wax RS. Effectiveness of using high-fidelity simulation to teach the management of general anesthesia for Cesarean delivery. Can J Anaesth. 2014 Oct;61(10):922-34. doi: 10.1007/s12630-014-0209-7. Epub 2014  Jul 29. PubMed PMID: 25069781. 

3: Katsios CM, Burry L, Nelson S, Jivraj T, Lapinsky SE, Wax RS, Christian M, Mehta S, Bell CM, Morris AM. An antimicrobial stewardship program improves antimicrobial treatment by culture site and the quality of antimicrobial prescribing in critically ill patients. Crit Care. 2012 Nov 5;16(6):R216. doi:10.1186/cc11854. PubMed PMID: 23127353; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3672592.     

4: Hui D, Morrison LJ, Windrim R, Lausman AY, Hawryluck L, Dorian P, Lapinsky SE, Halpern SH, Campbell DM, Hawkins P, Wax RS, Carvalho JCA, Dainty KN, Maxwell C, Jeejeebhoy FM. The American Heart Association 2010 guidelines for the management of cardiac arrest in pregnancy: consensus recommendations on implementation strategies. J Obstet Gynaecol Can. 2011 Aug;33(8):858-863. doi: 10.1016/S1701-2163(16)34991-X. PubMed PMID: 21846443. 

5: Dainty KN, Scales DC, Brooks SC, Needham DM, Dorian P, Ferguson N, Rubenfeld G, Wax R, Zwarenstein M, Thorpe K, Morrison LJ. A knowledge translation collaborative to improve the use of therapeutic hypothermia in post-cardiac arrest patients: protocol for a stepped wedge randomized trial. Implement Sci. 2011 Jan 14;6:4. doi: 10.1186/1748-5908-6-4. PubMed PMID: 21235799; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3031244.

6: Christian MD, Hamielec C, Lazar NM, Wax RS, Griffith L, Herridge MS, Lee D, Cook DJ. A retrospective cohort pilot study to evaluate a triage tool for use in a pandemic. Crit Care. 2009;13(5):R170. doi: 10.1186/cc8146. Epub 2009 Oct 29. PubMed PMID: 19874595; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2784402.  

7: Hayes CW, Rhee A, Detsky ME, Leblanc VR, Wax RS. Residents feel unprepared and unsupervised as leaders of cardiac arrest teams in teaching hospitals: a survey of internal medicine residents. Crit Care Med. 2007 Jul;35(7):1668-72. PubMed PMID: 17507825.

8: Christian MD, Hawryluck L, Wax RS, Cook T, Lazar NM, Herridge MS, Muller MP, Gowans DR, Fortier W, Burkle FM. Development of a triage protocol for critical care during an influenza pandemic. CMAJ. 2006 Nov 21;175(11):1377-81. PubMed PMID: 17116904; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC1635763.

9: MacDonald RD, O'Donnell C, Allan GM, Breeck K, Chow Y, DeMajo W, Peerbaye Y, Sawadsky B, Wax R. Interfacility transport of patients with decompression illness: literature review and consensus statement. Prehosp Emerg Care. 2006 Oct-Dec; 10(4):482-7. Review. PubMed PMID: 16997779.   

10: MacDonald RD, Adhikari NK, Scales DC, Wax RS, Stewart TE, Ferguson ND, Marquis F. Outcomes of interfacility critical care adult patient transport: a systematic review. Can J Anaesth. 2006 Apr;53(4):A417-8. doi: 10.1007/BF03022513. PubMed PMID: 27518522.       

11: Wax RS, Kenny L, Burns P. Educating providers of mechanical ventilation: an update. Curr Opin Crit Care. 2006 Feb;12(1):61-6. Review. PubMed PMID: 16394786.     

12: Fan E, MacDonald RD, Adhikari NK, Scales DC, Wax RS, Stewart TE, Ferguson ND. Outcomes of interfacility critical care adult patient transport: a systematic review. Crit Care. 2006 Feb;10(1):R6. Review. PubMed PMID: 16356212; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC1550794.     

13: Kozyra EF, Wax RS, Burry LD. Can 1 microg of cosyntropin be used to evaluate  adrenal insufficiency in critically ill patients? Ann Pharmacother. 2005 Apr;39(4):691-8. Pub 2005 Mar 1. Review. PubMed PMID: 15741424.    

14: Lapinsky SE, Wax R, Showalter R, Martinez-Motta JC, Hallett D, Mehta S, Burry L, Stewart TE. Prospective evaluation of an internet-linked handheld computer critical care knowledge access system. Crit Care. 2004 Dec;8(6):R414-21. Epub 2004 Oct 14. PubMed PMID: 15566586; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC1065064.  

15: Bryce CL, Loewenstein G, Arnold RM, Schooler J, Wax RS, Angus DC. Quality of death: assessing the importance placed on end-of-life treatment in the intensive-care unit. Med Care. 2004 May;42(5):423-31. PubMed PMID: 15083102.

16: Burry LD, Wax RS. Role of corticosteroids in septic shock. Ann Pharmacother. 2004 Mar;38(3):464-72. Epub 2004 Jan 23. Review. PubMed PMID: 14970369.   

17: Fischer S, Stewart TE, Mehta S, Wax R, Lapinsky SE. Handheld computing in medicine. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2003 Mar-Apr;10(2):139-49. Review. PubMed PMID:  12595403; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC150367.    

18: Ritacca FV, Simone C, Wax R, Craig KG, Walley KR. Pro/con clinical debate: are steroids useful in the management of patients with septic shock? Crit Care. 2002 Apr;6(2):113-6. Epub 2002 Feb 6. Review. PubMed PMID: 11983034; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC137290. 

19: Angus DC, Wax RS. Epidemiology of sepsis: an update. Crit Care Med. 2001 Jul;29(7 Suppl):S109-16. Review. PubMed PMID: 11445744.