Dr. Paule Regnault 

Dr. Kenneth Clarke

Dr. John Cornelius 

Canadian Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery: A History

The impetus to create the Canadian Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (CSAPS) rests with Lloyd Carlsen (Toronto) who along with Paule Regnault (Montreal) was having difficulty getting aesthetic papers accepted on the scientific program at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society of Plastic Surgeons (CSPS).

To establish a forum for plastic surgeons to discuss aesthetic surgery topics, Lloyd Carlsen gathered interested surgeons with aesthetic practices to create a new Society in 1973. The six Founding Members were: Carlsen (the first President), Regnault, William Butt (Toronto), Kenneth Clarke (Toronto), John Cornelius (Saint John) and Theo Wilkie (Vancouver). Carlsen had already opened a private hospital for cosmetic surgery in Woodbridge, Ontario, in1971, while John Cornelius had a private facility in his own home, and Theo Wilkie was about to open the first private surgical facility for aesthetic surgery on the West Coast, in 1974.

The first meeting of the Society was a discussion group in 1973 in conjunction with the CSPS Annual Meeting in London, Ontario, with six members present. In 1974, the second meeting was held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery which was held in Vancouver with Theo Wilkie acting as the local ASAPS meeting host and the 2nd President of CSAPS. Two new members joined the group – Dale Birdsell (Calgary) and Gaston Schwarz (Montreal) – and were declared Charter Members. The decision was made to include the word “Cosmetic” in brackets as part of the Society’s name.

The 3rd meeting held in Toronto in 1975, was the first year with invited speakers: Sal Castanares (Los Angeles) and John Lewis (Atlanta) were the invitees. In conjunction with the simultaneous CSPS Annual Meeting, a combined panel on facelift was held. During these early years, the CSAPS Annual Meeting was a private affair normally held as a satellite event in the same location preceding the CSPS Annual Meeting. Interested surgeons were welcome although this was on the personal invitation of an existing member.

The first public meeting with registration open to any interested plastic surgeon was the 11th Annual Meeting held in 1984 in Montreal with Paule Regnault acting as President.  That was also the first year with a printed scientific program.

In 1985 at the 12th Annual Meeting, the first live surgery program was held at Lloyd Carlsen’s private hospital in Woodbridge, Ontario. From the outset, live surgery consisted of two operating rooms going simultaneously, with a closed video feed to the conference and with the ability to switch from room to room at the discretion of the session moderator. At that meeting, two surgeons did facelifts: Jacques Papillon (Montreal) and John Emery (Sonoma, California), and the pattern was established of having live surgery on Friday, papers presented on Saturday and the President’s dinner on Saturday night. A popular highlight at future meetings was always the presentation of the 12-month postoperative results of the preceding year’s live surgery cases – traditionally presented slowly and without comment by the presenter.

For the first 17 years, the office of President of the Society rotated among the early members with Lloyd Carlsen being President five times and with Regnault, Wilkie and Birdsell each being President three times. In 1991, the first non-Canadian became President of CSAPS; Bruce Connell (Newport Beach, California), who was a regular attendee at CSAPS Annual Meetings and became involved with the Executive Committee of the Society on the invitation of Lloyd Carlsen.

In 1998, the 25th Anniversary Meeting was held in Toronto with Tom Bell (Toronto) as President.  The President’s dinner was a gala affair with all three of the surviving Founding Members (Carlsen, Butt and Clarke) present, along with many Past-Presidents.

The 2001 Annual Meeting was to be in Vancouver with Robert Thompson (Vancouver) as President. However, with the meeting scheduled to begin on Friday, the terrorist event of 9/11 occurred on Tuesday. All commercial air traffic in North American was grounded and the meeting was cancelled with two days’ notice.

In 2010 when Wayne Carmen (Toronto) was President, the Aesthetic Surgery Journal became the official journal of the Society and the word “Cosmetic” was dropped from the name of the Society.

In 2011, with Betsy Hall-Findlay (Banff) acting as President of the meeting in Calgary, one of the guest surgeons, an Australian, was detained by immigration officials at the airport and told that doing demonstration surgery was prohibited.  In 2012, the same thing happened with an American surgeon coming to the meeting in Montreal when Felix Tetu (Quebec City) was President.  The next year, President Greg Waslen (Calgary) pre-emptively contacted Immigration Canada, requesting an exemption for visiting surgeons to do demonstration surgery without obtaining a work visa. With Richard Warren (Vancouver) then Chair of the Plastic Surgery Specialty Committee, the Royal College got involved and supported the CSAPS position, but in the end, the CSAPS request was denied.  From that year on, live surgery as part of the Annual Meeting came to an end and visiting surgeons were asked to provide a video of themselves doing their surgery and to be onsite at the Annual Meeting to elaborate further on their procedure and to answer questions.

In 2020, the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic resulted in many medical organizations cancelling their in-person gatherings. Scott Barr (Sudbury) was the President of CSAPS that year and the Annual Meeting was postponed until the fall of 2021 in Vancouver.

In 2022, Nancy Van Laeken (Vancouver) was president and CSAPS formalized a memorandum of understanding to collaborate with the Aesthetic Society (ASAPS). Jennifer Walden (New York) was President of the Aesthetic Society and a visiting surgeon to commemorate the agreement at the 49th Annual Meeting in Toronto.

In 2023, the 50th Anniversary Meeting was held in Vancouver with Charles Guertin (Montreal) as President. That year, the Executive Committee made the decision to begin endorsing Canadian plastic surgery fellowships with a focus on aesthetic surgery training, as well as, to have a CSAPS Traveling Professor Resident Mentorship Symposium, with Jamil Ahmad (Mississauga) being the inaugural traveling professor.

Richard J. Warren, MD, FRCSC – 2023

Past Presidents

1997                     Stephen Brady, MD, FRCSC
1996                     J. Gerald Rheault, MD, FRCSC
1995                     *W.R.N. Lindsay, MD, FRCSC
1994                     Pierre Langlois, MD, FRCSC
1993                     *John Taylor, MD, FRCSC
1992                     Peter Wyszynski, MD, FRCSC
1991                     *Bruce Connell, MD, FRCSC
1990                     Dale Birdsell, MD, FRCSC
1989                     Dale Birdsell, MD, FRCSC
1988                     *Gaston Schwarz, MD, FRCSC
1987                     *Gaston Schwarz, MD, FRCSC
1986                     Lloyd Carlsen, MD, FRCSC
1985                     *Paule Regnault, MD, FRCSC
1984                     *Paule Regnault, MD, FRCSC
1983                     Kenneth Clarke, MD, FRCSC
1982                     Lloyd Carlsen, MD, FRCSC
1981                     Dale Birdsell, MD, FRCSC
1980                     *John Cornelius, MD, FRCSC
1979                     *William Butt, MD, FRCSC
1978                     *Paule Regnault, MD, FRCSC
1977                     *Theo Wilkie, MD, FRCSC
1976                     Lloyd Carlsen, MD, FRCSC
1975                     *Theo Wilkie, MD, FRCSC
1974                     *Theo Wilkie, MD, FRCSC
1973                     Lloyd Carlsen, MD, FRCSC
1972                     Lloyd Carlsen, MD, FRCSC

(* Deceased)