Meet the Department Chair
David Shibata, MD, FACS, FSSO, FASCRS, is the Harwell Wilson Alumni Endowed Chair in Surgery, Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery and Executive Director/Chief Medical Officer of the UTHSC Cancer Program at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.
Before assuming his current role at UTHSC in 2015, Dr. Shibata was Professor of Surgery and Oncology at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, as well as Senior Member and Chief of the Section of Colorectal Oncology at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa, Florida.
The Department of Surgery is comprised of approximately 70 faculty members and 50 surgical residents who participate in research, education, and clinical services at affiliated hospitals that include Methodist UT Hospital, Baptist Memorial Hospital, Regional One Health, St. Francis Hospital, Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Veteran’s Administration Medical Center. The divisions within the Department of Surgery include cardiac surgery, general surgery, pediatric cardiothoracic surgery, pediatric surgery, plastic and reconstructive surgery, surgical oncology, thoracic surgery, transplantation, trauma/surgical critical care, and vascular and endovascular surgery.
Dr. Shibata’s focus is on the development and leadership of a comprehensive surgical clinical service, clinical and basic science research, and the growth and enhanced excellence of our residency program. With more than 20 years of experience, Dr. Shibata has trained at or held academic appointments at several world-renowned institutions including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, where he completed his residency in General Surgery and a research fellowship in Cancer Biology; and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, New York, where he completed a clinical fellowship in Surgical Oncology.
Dr. Shibata is an internationally recognized authority in the multidisciplinary management of colorectal cancer and, in particular, brings significant expertise in minimally invasive and robot-assisted surgical approaches. He also has extensive experience in the management of patients with early-onset and hereditary colorectal cancers.
He serves on the Board of Directors of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) holds appointments on its guidelines panels for Cancers of the Colon And Rectum and Genetics/High Risk Assessment for Colorectal Cancer. He has been a member of the Lower GI Expert Panel for the American Joint Commission on Cancer and is past Chair of the Society of Surgical Oncology’s (SSO) Colorectal Disease Site Working Group. He has served on the Executive Council of the SSO and holds committee appointments in multiple national surgical societies.
An accomplished clinical, translational and laboratory investigator, Dr. Shibata continues to lead a National Institutes of Health-funded research program. He has published over 180 peer-reviewed publications, reviews and book chapters. To date, he has served as principal investigator or co-investigator on grants and awards, including those from the NIH, totaling more than $30 million.