Dr. Richard Tytus
A family physician in Hamilton for more than thirty years, and the founder of the clinical research site at 304 Victoria Avenue North that has spent three decades bringing pharmaceutical trials to the community he practises in.
- CPSO #32838 active since September 4, 1981
- MD McMaster University, 1980
- CCFP 1985
- Hamilton & Caledonia Ontario
If you came here looking for Dr. Tytus the family doctor, his community practice is listed with the Hamilton Family Health Team, and his practice site is drtytus.com.
If you are wondering whether a clinical trial might be right for you or someone in your family, start with the patient guide — it answers the usual questions in plain language, including what participating costs (nothing) and what it involves.
Medicine, approached from behind the pharmacy counter
Richard Henry Tytus came to medicine by way of pharmacy. His first degree was a Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy, and it shaped how he has practised ever since: read the monograph, respect the dose, understand why one molecule behaves differently from the one beside it on the shelf. That instinct is unusual in a family doctor and indispensable in a clinical investigator.
He completed his MD at McMaster University in 1980 and was entered on the register of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario on September 4, 1981. Certification in family medicine from the College of Family Physicians of Canada followed in 1985, and he later became a Fellow of the College.
What happened next is the part that matters most to the people who see him: he stayed. For more than thirty years Dr. Tytus has practised family medicine in Hamilton, with a second practice location in Caledonia and hospital privileges at Hamilton Health Sciences. Community family medicine was never a step on the way to something else. Everything else — the research site, the teaching appointment, three decades of association work — grew out of it.
The research grew out of the practice
Hamilton Medical Research Group began where the questions did: in an exam room, with patients whose existing options had run out. Dr. Tytus founded HMRG so that his community could reach investigational treatments without driving to Toronto for them. The site now occupies 304 Victoria Avenue North in Hamilton and conducts Phase II through Phase IV industry-sponsored clinical trials. He is its Founder, Principal Investigator, and Medical Director.
The phrase the site works under — Research That Reaches Home — is his framing of the problem. Global pharmaceutical science means very little to a patient in Hamilton until someone local is qualified, equipped, and trusted enough to deliver it. That last mile is the whole job.
The longer story, from Sir William Osler’s boyhood in Dundas to the rules every trial here runs under, is on our history page.
What a Principal Investigator is answerable for
On every trial the site accepts, the Principal Investigator carries the regulatory and ethical accountability for how it is run: protocol feasibility before anything is signed, informed consent, the delegation of study tasks to qualified staff, eligibility and safety decisions, source documentation, and the integrity of the data that leaves the building. Sponsors and contract research organizations are not buying a room and a freezer. They are buying a physician willing to be answerable for what happens in it.
Dr. Tytus has held that responsibility across the site's therapeutic portfolio:
- Cardiovascular
- Diabetes
- Obesity
- Respiratory
- Renal
- Vaccines
- General medicine
Because he practises in the same neighbourhoods the site recruits from, the relationship rarely ends at the final study visit. A participant who finishes a trial is still someone's patient the following month. That continuity is unusual at a research site, and it is deliberate.
Teaching, and three decades of association work
Dr. Tytus has been an Assistant Clinical Professor (Adjunct) in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University since 1996, teaching in the faculty where he trained. Alongside the practice and the research site, he has spent much of his career in the governance of Canadian medicine — the unglamorous committee work that determines how physicians are licensed, paid, connected, and equipped.
Current roles
- Chair, District 4, Ontario Medical Association District 4 represents more than 5,300 physicians across southwestern Ontario. Its branch societies include the Hamilton Academy of Medicine.
- Assistant Clinical Professor (Adjunct), Department of Family Medicine, McMaster University 1996 – Present
- Member, Virtual Care Task Force 2019 – Present A joint task force of the Canadian Medical Association, the College of Family Physicians of Canada, and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
- Co-founder and Medical Director, Banty Inc. A Canadian telehealth company.
- Founder, Principal Investigator and Medical Director, Hamilton Medical Research Group
Previous leadership
- Board Director, Canadian Medical Association 2017 – 2020
- Board Director, Ontario Medical Association 2011 – 2017 · 2018 – 2021
- Chair, OntarioMD 2012 – 2017
- President, Hamilton Academy of Medicine 2009 – 2010
Awards
Three recognitions across a career: one from the family physicians of Ontario, and two from the provincial and national associations he served.
- 2012 Ontario Family Physician of the Year Ontario College of Family Physicians
- 2020 Life Membership Award Canadian Medical Association
- 2020 Life Membership Award Ontario Medical Association
Guideline authorship
Dr. Tytus is a co-author of the Canadian Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guidelines, contributing the chapter on emerging technologies and virtual medicine in obesity management with Dr. Dennis DiValentino — a fellow HMRG Principal Investigator — and Dr. Leen Naji. The guidelines are published by Obesity Canada with the Canadian Association of Bariatric Physicians and Surgeons, and are maintained as a living document.
His wider publication record is indexed on Google Scholar and in McMaster University's Experts directory.
A conversation during a routine appointment
A patient mentioned volunteering at De Mazenod Door Outreach during an ordinary appointment, and a partnership came out of it. DMDO is an Oblate-run inner-city outreach in Hamilton that serves people who are poor or marginalized, and inner-city youth.
Dr. Tytus took the introduction further and engaged the Ontario Medical Association and VRPRO on the organization's behalf. DMDO was subsequently named the beneficiary of the 2025 Hamilton Santa Run, which raised over $20,000.
Check any of this independently
Transparency is one of the five values this site is built on, and it applies to people as much as to paperwork. Every claim on this page can be checked at a source HMRG does not control.
Talk to the site he built
Patients asking whether a study is right for them, and sponsors or CROs evaluating HMRG for feasibility, reach the same clinical operations team at 304 Victoria Avenue North.