When Dr. John Semple joined Women’s College Hospital nearly four decades ago as its first plastic surgeon, breast reconstruction was not yet widely regarded as an integral part of breast cancer care. Women’s needed someone to support the busy Henrietta Banting Breast Centre and establish a general plastic surgery service, and Dr. Semple jumped at the opportunity.
What he found was an academic hospital with a history of resilience, a commitment to equity and an openness to doing things differently.
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I had a good feeling when I walked into the hospital. There is an ‘X factor’ that resonates from Women’s. Some people might call it culture, but I think it is something different.
— Dr. Semple
As Dr. Semple prepares to retire, that instinct has proven enduring. Over his career, he has served as Surgeon-in-Chief, Head of the Division of Plastic Surgery, Senior Scientist at the Women’s College Hospital Research Institute and Chair in Surgical Research of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. But when he reflects on what he is most proud of, he is quick to share the credit.
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No career in surgery is ever an individual achievement. I have been privileged to work alongside exceptional colleagues, residents, nurses, allied health professionals, researchers and administrators who have challenged me, inspired me and ultimately made me a better surgeon. Surgery is a team effort.
— Dr. Semple
Above. all, he points to his patients. Caring for people through some of the most difficult moments of their lives, he says, has been a privilege. Their resilience and courage inspired him to listen differently, understand inequities in access and advocate for breast reconstruction to be available to women regardless of where they live.
Permission to be curious
That willingness to listen also shaped the questions Dr. Semple pursued throughout his career.
“Women’s gave me permission to be curious,” he says. “It allowed me to look beyond the traditional boundaries of surgery and ask questions that did not necessarily belong to surgery alone.”
An alumnus of OCAD University with a background in art and design, Dr. Semple has always seen connections between his creative and surgical worlds. “Surgeons and artists both think with their hands,” he says. Both require careful observation, adaptability and the ability to make decisions when the answer is not always obvious.
That curiosity has been grounded in a simple belief: “Innovation and compassion must advance together.”
For Dr. Semple, being a surgeon has never been only about performing an operation. Whether caring for someone undergoing breast reconstruction, developing a research program or teaching the next generation, he believes the work is also about restoring “confidence, dignity and hope.”
Making the future possible
That philosophy has particular resonance as Women’s College Hospital launches The Future Follows Us, a campaign grounded in more than 140 years of imagining, proving and building what comes next.
“When I look back over almost four decades at Women’s, many of the things we now regard as ordinary began as ideas that were not yet ordinary,” Dr. Semple says.
Breast reconstruction is one example. More than three decades ago, it was not always considered an integral part of breast cancer care. Dr. Semple and his colleagues helped change that. Now, as he looks ahead, he is thinking less about what he leaves behind and more about what others will build from it.
“I don’t think legacy is about having your name attached to something,” he says. “It is about leaving behind people, programs, ideas and institutions that are stronger because you were there.”
The newly created Dr. John Semple Futures Fund is intended to do just that by carrying forward his commitment to research, mentorship and discovery and creating opportunities for the next generation to pursue ideas that have yet to be imagined.
It is also why Dr. Semple believes philanthropy is so important to what comes next.
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Philanthropy gives an institution something that is extremely valuable: the ability to move toward the future rather than simply respond to the present.
— Dr. Semple
A philanthropic gift can give a researcher the opportunity to ask an important question, support a young investigator with a new idea, bring new technology into clinical care or help an emerging program prove what is possible. At Women’s, those ideas have the potential to travel well beyond the hospital, shaping better care elsewhere.
“The most exciting thing about the future of Women’s is that it will be built by the next generation of care providers,” Dr. Semple says. “My role now is increasingly to help create the conditions in which they can imagine things that we have not yet imagined.”
After nearly four decades spent helping build what came next, that may be Dr. Semple’s most fitting legacy of all.