Left to right: Dr. Sheri Roberston, DC, Lead, Spine Program; Dr. Travis Marion, Orthopaedic Surgeon, Medical Lead Spine Surgery; Dr. Tina LeFrancois, Orthopaedic Surgeon and Chief of Surgery; Dr. Laura Lohkamp, Neurosurgeon; Dr. Martin Gagliardi, Neurosurgeon.
We are pleased to welcome two new surgeons to Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (TBRHSC). Dr. Martin Gagliardi, neurosurgeon, most recently worked at the University of Calgary Combined Spine Fellowship Program, and Dr. Laura Lohkamp, neurosurgeon, is joining from SickKids hospital in Toronto. For more information, brief biographies of Dr. Gagliardi and Dr. Lohkamp are appended.
All spine surgery referrals for Dr. Martin Gagliardi, Dr. Iftikharul Haq, Dr. Laura Lohkamp, Dr. Graeme Marchuk, Dr. Travis Marion, Dr. Stephen McCluskey and Dr. David Puskas must be directed to Surgical Central Intake.
Reminder of Referral Process for Primary Care Providers
Upon receipt of a spine program referral, Surgical Central Intake will route the referral to the best fit next available surgeon based on the diagnosis category. Primary care providers and patients may continue to request a preferred surgeon.
Please note: Patients who have had spine surgery will be sent back to the surgeon who performed the initial / latest surgery. The referral process for the Low Back Rapid Access Clinic (LB-RAC – formerly ISAEC)
remains unchanged. Please continue to use the LB-RAC referral form. You should not experience any disruption to your current referral process.
To Refer to Spine Program Rapid Access Clinic
- Fax all spine and ISAEC referrals to 1-844-497-2445 (toll free).
- For any telephone inquiries, please call us at 807-684-6965 or toll free at 1-833-706-9417.
- Please use the attached referral form for spine surgery referrals. We are also live with OCEAN e-Referral.
Faxes sent directly to a surgeon office will be returned to the requestor accompanied by a sheet with instructors on how to refer to the Spine Program Rapid Access Clinic. Please try to provide as much relevant information in the referral as possible. If basic information required for proper triage is not complete, the referral will be returned with a face sheet identifying the missing
components.
A complete referral will support triage and timely management of your patients. By-passing Surgical Central Intake results in costly waste of limited resources including duplicate imaging and duplicate consults.
Welcome Dr. Martin Gagliardi
Dr. Martin Gagliardi, MD, completed his undergraduate education and neurosurgical training at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. Dr. Gagliardi worked as a dedicated spine surgeon in partnership with Department of Orthopaedics, Spanish Hospital of Mendoza, in Argentina, from 2018 to 2021.
Dr. Gagliardi continued to pursue additional subspecialized combined spine surgical training in Canada. He practiced at St. Michael’s Hospital, completing his Complex Spine Surgery Fellowship at the University of Toronto between 2021 and 2022 and subsequently joined the University of Calgary Combined Spine Fellowship Program in 2022-2023 before moving to Thunder Bay with his family.
Dr. Gagliardi has been actively involved in medical education, training of residents and medical students throughout his career and was a member of the Anatomy, Physiology, and Neurosurgery Departments at the University of Buenos Aires. His primary research interests focus on the study of spinopelvic alignment and the implementation of minimally invasive techniques for the management of spine pathology.
On behalf of the Spine Program at TBRHSC, we are excited to work with Dr, Gagliardi and look forward to advancing our initiatives to provide evidence based care to patients of Northwestern Ontario.
Welcome Dr. Laura Lohkamp
Originally from Munich, Germany, Dr. Lohkamp completed her Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) at the Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria and her neurosurgical residency at the Charité-University in Berlin, Germany. She completed paediatric neurosurgery fellowship training in Lyon, France and at the Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto. Having her focus set on paediatric and adult spine surgery, she completed additional fellowship training within the Orthopaedic Spine department at SickKids and
a combined Complex Spine Fellowship at Toronto Western Hospital, University of Toronto. She is an active member in several medical societies including the AO Spine North America, International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery, European Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery, as well as the Craniovertebral Junction and Spine Society.
Dr. Lohkamp completed two Master degree programs in “Neurosurgery of the Craniovertebral Junction” at the Catholic University of Rome, Italy and “Principles and Practice of Clinical Research” at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, USA, respectively. Her doctoral thesis focused on mechanisms of ischemia and reperfusion injury in kidney transplantation (CharitéUniversity, Berlin). In addition to her international education, she completed multiple observerships as a visiting consultant abroad for further sub-specialisation in specific paediatric and spinal neurosurgical disorders, including pathologies of the craniovertebral junction.
Her academic activity is based on a strong research background with publication of more than 40 peer reviewed articles, 4 book chapters, and numerous international presentations. Dr Lohkamp currently serves as a reviewer for the medical journals Spine, Cancers, and Journal of Clinical Medicine as well as an Editor for Journal of Neurosurgery, and Frontiers in Surgery.
One behalf of the Department of Surgery at TBRHSC, we are excited to be working with Dr. Lohkamp to advance the neurosurgical care of patients in Northwestern Ontario.