In 2004, Orbinski became a research scientist at St. Michael's Hospital and professor of both medicine and political science at the University of Toronto. The medical journal The Lancet recognized one of his co-authored papers on HIV/AIDS treatment adherence as among the 20 most significant medical research papers of that year (2006). Another 2002 paper in The Lancet that he co-authored analyzing the lack of research for neglected diseases has been recognized as "one of the most important scholarly articles that shaped scholarship in the field of global health in the post Second World War years."