Dr. Thomas Varghese Jr. is the Chief, Section of General Thoracic Surgery at the University of Utah; Chief Value Officer (Ambulatory and Inpatient) and Associate Chief Medical Quality Officer at Huntsman Cancer Institute; 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 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 ). He serves as the Deputy Editor for Digital Media and Digital Scholarship for the Annals of Thoracic Surgery, and helped launch the podcasts “Beyond the Abstract” and “Same Surgeon, Different Light” for the STS.
In addition to his academic work, Tom’s passion is the quest to build a better world through leadership training, DEI and social justice efforts. Dr. Varghese is a leader with a robust track record of mentoring and sponsoring medical students, residents, fellows, junior faculty, post-doctoral research graduates, and PhD students. He is a member of the Huntsman Cancer Institute’s Equity, Diversity, Inclusion (EDI) Governance Council and HCI’s Enterprise Leadership Council. Dr. Varghese had the honor of serving as the co-chair of the Association of Women Surgeons #HeForShe Task Force from 2017 to 2019, and served 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 led the SUS Promising Leaders program for mid-career under-represented in medicine (URM) faculty, and is a co-PI of an ACS Board of Regents Innovative DEI and Anti-Racism grant that led to the development of the SUS-AAS JUMPSTART program (https://www.sus-aas-dei.org/ ).
Tom spends his free time with his family, as well as actively engaging on social media.
