Obesity Expert Named UB Chief of Pediatric Surgery; Leads Fellowship
Published October 10, 2013 This content is archived.
Carroll McWilliams (Mac) Harmon, MD, PhD
Story based on news release by Ellen Goldbaum
Carroll McWilliams (Mac) Harmon, MD, PhD, an internationally recognized leader in minimally invasive surgery and the treatment of adolescent obesity, has been named professor and chief of pediatric surgery in the University at Buffalo’s Department of Surgery.
He also will direct UB’s accredited pediatric surgery fellowship, one of the original nine such programs in the United States.
Simultaneously, Harmon has been named pediatric surgeon-in-chief at Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo, a Kaleida Health facility.
He begins his new joint role Jan. 1, 2014.
The shared position represents one more example of collaboration among key health care partners on the emerging Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus in downtown Buffalo. In 2016, UB will relocate its medical school there in a state-of-the-art facility and Kaleida Health will open its new John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital.
Leader in Pediatric Surgery, Research
“Dr. Harmon is an outstanding physician-scientist who has all of the qualities required to transform our division of pediatric surgery into one of the nation’s best,” said Michael E. Cain, MD, vice president for health sciences at UB and dean of the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
Currently with the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Medicine, Harmon is a professor and director of pediatric surgical research as well as associate program director of the pediatric surgery fellowship at UAB and Children’s of Alabama.
In addition, he is the hospital’s general surgery clinic director and surgical director of the Children’s Center for Weight Management and the Georgeson Center for Advanced Intestinal Rehab.
Conducting Major Bariatric Surgery Study
Harmon is one of the principal investigators for the research project, “Teen Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery,” funded with $10 million from the National Institutes of Health through 2018.
He is author of approximately 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications.
In addition, Harmon serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Laparoendoscopic and Advanced Surgical Techniques and Pediatric Surgical International.
He also chairs the Childhood Obesity Committee of the American Pediatric Surgical Association and is a member of the Humanitarian Task Force of the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons.
He is a past president of the International Pediatric Endosurgery Group.
Background Includes Vanderbilt Degrees, Residency
Harmon earned both his medical degree and a PhD in molecular physiology and biophysics at Vanderbilt University.
He completed surgical residencies at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a pediatric surgery residency and fellowship at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Harmon also was an instructor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania and an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Michigan Medical School.
He earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa.
