Michael J. Zinner, M.D.

Dr. Michael J. Zinner currently serves as the Moseley Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, the Surgeon-in-Chief at the Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), and Clinical Director of the Dana Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center. Dr. Zinner is a native of Florida and received his M.D. degree in 1971 from the University of Florida (Gainesville). Following three years as a laboratory investigator at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, D.C., Dr. Zinner finished his surgical residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He subsequently served for five years on the faculty at Downstate Medical Center and Kings County Hospital as Chief of Surgical Oncology. Dr. Zinner returned to Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1985 to serve as Vice Chairman of the Department of Surgery and Co-director of the Gastrointestinal Service. In 1988, he became Chairman of the Department of Surgery at UCLA Medical School and Medical Center. Dr. Zinner was appointed Dean for Clinical Affairs at UCLA Medical School in 1993. He served in both capacities until 1994 when he moved to Boston to become the Chairman of the Department of Surgery at BWH.

In 1997, Dr. Zinner was appointed to the Board of Directors of Partners HealthCare System, the parent organization that oversees BWH and Massachusetts General Hospital, its affiliated hospitals, and integrated delivery system. He also served on the Advisory Board of the Institute for Health Care Policy at the Heller Graduate School at Brandeis University.

Dr. Zinner is a member of the editorial boards of several distinguished journals, including Annals of Surgery, Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery, and the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. He is the past and current Editor for "Maingot's Abdominal Operations," a two-volume textbook and atlas on gastrointestinal surgery. Dr. Zinner remains a busy clinician and his current clinical focus center on diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. His clinical practice centers on pancreatico-hepatobiliary disease and diseases of the colon and rectum. At the Brigham, he won the Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award for 2003 and 2004 awarded by the residents in the general surgery residency program.

Outside of the clinical, teaching, and laboratory sphere, Dr. Zinner is involved on the local, regional, and national levels on issues relating to the impact of changes in the health care delivery system on the practices of surgery and the viability of academic medical centers. Currently he is vice chairman of the Board of Governors of the American College of Surgeons.

In 2004, he established the Center for Surgery and Public Health, a collaboration between the Harvard Medical School (through the Department of Surgery at the Brigham and Women's Hospital) and the Harvard School of Public Health.