Surgery News & Notes

C. Keith Ozaki, MD, has been appointed vice chair of the Department of Surgery at Brigham Health, effective January 1, 2020. In this new role, Keith will serve as a senior member of the Department of Surgery leadership team.

C. Keith Ozaki, MD
Vice Chair, Department of Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
John A. Mannick Professor of Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Dr. C. Keith Ozaki is a clinically active vascular surgeon, vice chair of the Department of Surgery and the John A. Mannick Professor of Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School.

He earned his medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine, completed a general surgery residency through the Deaconess/Harvard Surgical Service (now Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) and then graduated from the vascular surgery fellowship at the University of Michigan Health System. He serves as director of vascular surgery research at the Brigham and currently leads the Ozaki Vascular Biology Lab within the Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery. Dr. Ozaki is also the director of resident research in the Department of Surgery. In this role, he prepares surgical trainees for their two to three years of academic enrichment time embedded in their surgical residency.

Dr. Ozaki’s clinical interests include complex hemodialysis access and peripheral vascular occlusive disease. He has authored over 120 peer-reviewed publications.

Over the past year, the Department of Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital has continued to build on our proud history of clinical and academic achievement. This report highlights just some of the many examples of our ongoing commitment to excellence in clinical care, research and surgical education.

To view or download the report click here.

After an extensive national search, Ali Tavakkoli, MD, has been named chief of General and Gastrointestinal Surgery at Brigham Health, effective December 1, 2019.  

Dr. Tavakkoli is a minimally invasive and bariatric surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital where he serves as co-director of the Center for Weight Management and Metabolic Surgery and director of the minimally invasive surgery fellowship. He is an associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School.

He received his medical degree from the London Hospital Medical College in the UK, where he became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England before moving to Boston where he completed both a surgical residency and fellowship in advanced minimally invasive surgery at the Brigham.

Dr. Tavakkoli leads an active NIH-funded research group that studies the mechanisms of diabetes resolution after gastric bypass surgery, focusing on the role of intestinal metabolism and portal signaling. His group’s goals are to develop less invasive alternatives to surgery that can replicate the metabolic benefits of surgery without the risks.

He is an active member of many professional societies and a member of the board of governors of the American College of Surgeons, and president-elect of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American College of Surgeons. He is an associate editor for Digestive Diseases and Sciences, serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery, and has been recognized for his dedication to surgical education with several teaching and mentorship awards throughout his career.