Damon C. Scales MD, PhD, FRCPC

Dr. Scales is a clinician-scientist at Sunnybrook. He received his medical degree in 1997 from the University of Toronto and subsequently specialized in internal medicine and adult critical care medicine. His PhD in clinical epidemiology examined the impact of intensive care unit (ICU) technology on long-term survival. Dr. Scales conducts health services and translational health research that seeks to improve the outcomes of critically ill patients. He has conducted several large cluster randomized controlled trials (RCT) of large-scale interventions for improving quality. These have included a cluster RCT of a multifaceted knowledge translation intervention to increase adoption of six evidence-based care practices (the ICU Clinical Best Practices Project funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care) and a stepped-wedge cluster RCT to improve the use of therapeutic hypothermia in cardiac arrest survivors (the Strategies for Post-Arrest Care Trial, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research [CIHR] and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada).
He is conducting a stepped-wedge cluster RCT to improve the application of evidence-based predictions about neurological prognosis for patients that have suffered from anoxic brain injury (the PremaTOR trial, funded by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, CIHR and Physicians' Services Incorporated Foundation). He is also the principal investigator for the ICE-PACS RCT, which is evaluating the prehospital initiation of therapeutic hypothermia by paramedics for improving outcomes after cardiac arrest.