A career at the operating table
Dr. Silvaggio received his medical degree from McMaster University and completed his residency at the University of Ottawa. For sixteen years he has practised at Trillium Health Partners in the Greater Toronto Area, caring for patients before, during and after surgery. He has guided people through some of the most vulnerable hours of their lives.
Then the perspective reversed
At forty-two, a routine investigation ended with the words “I think you have cancer.” He was diagnosed with two cancers at the same time, in his esophagus and his colon. Everything he understood as a physician, he was about to live as a patient: chemotherapy, immune therapy and, finally, major surgery.
Like many patients, he first felt powerless, and frightened. He kept a calm face for the people he loved and only let himself feel the fear when he was alone.
From “Why me?” to “What can I do about this?”
The turning point came when he changed the question. He immersed himself in the research on prehabilitation, preparing the body and mind for surgery, and applied it to himself. He worked on his nutrition, his fitness and his mindset as consistently as chemotherapy allowed, and leaned on the people closest to him.
He came to see his recovery as the work of a surgical triad: the surgeon performing the operation, the anesthesia team keeping him safe, and himself, arriving in the best possible shape. For the first time, he saw himself not as a passive participant but as an active member of his own surgical team.
Why he wrote Built to Recover
As a patient, he searched for a single, practical guide to preparing for surgery, written for the person facing it. He couldn't find one. Built to Recover is that guide: the science he knew as a physician and lived as a patient, translated into steps anyone can take, whatever their starting point.
All proceeds from the book go to cancer research and support programmes through Childhood Cancer Canada.
“It was the surgeon's job to get me through the operation with the cancer removed. It was my job to go into surgery with the best possible level of fitness, mentally and physically.”— Mathew Peter Silvaggio, MD, in Built to Recover
Today
Dr. Silvaggio continues to practise at Trillium Health Partners. He speaks to patients, physicians, hospital teams and conferences about how better preparation leads to better recovery. He lives in the Greater Toronto Area with his two sons.