ThomasKVargheseJr.MDMS, MBA, FACS

Summary

• Dr. Thomas Varghese Jr. is the Chief Value Officer (Ambulatory and Inpatient) and Associate Chief Medical Quality Officer at Huntsman Cancer Institute; Chief, Section of General Thoracic Surgery at the University of Utah; and a Professor (Tenure-track) in the department of Surgery at the University of Utah School of Medicine. Dr. Varghese holds national leadership positions in the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS), Thoracic Surgery Directors Association (TSDA), American College of Surgeons (ACS), and Society of University Surgeons. He serves as the Deputy Editor for Digital Media and Digital Scholarship for the Annals of Thoracic Surgery. He is a health services researcher whose clinical, research and operational experience are on the optimization of patient health before surgery, surgeon performance and health system outcomes. He helped create the American College of Surgeons Strong for Surgery program (https://www.facs.org/quality-programs/strong-for-surgery ) and is a co-PI on the National Cancer Institute RO1-funded clinical trial on the role of Precision Exercise Prescription (PEP) for elective lung cancer surgical resection (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03306992 ).
  His other passion, in addition to his academic work, is the quest to build a better world through diversity, equity, inclusion and justice efforts. Dr. Varghese had the honor of serving as the co-chair of the Association of Women Surgeons #HeForShe TaskForce from 2017 to 2019, and currently serves as the inaugural Chair of the Society of University Surgeons Justice.Equity.Diversity.Inclusion (J.E.D.I) Committee (Taskforce Chair 2019-2020; Committee Chair 2020-2023). In this role for SUS, he leads the SUS Promising Leaders program for mid-career under-represented in medicine (URM) faculty who are the surgical leaders of tomorrow, and is a co-PI of an ACS Board of Regents Innovative DEI and Anti-Racism grant that expands the Promising Leaders Program to Junior URM Faculty