Cambridge Health Alliance Names New Chief of Surgery
CHA welcomes Dr. Siva Vithiananthan as chief of surgery
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), a community health system serving Cambridge, Somerville and Boston's metro-north communities, has named Siva Vithiananthan, MD, FACS, FASMBS, FICS, as its new chief of surgery.
"Dr. Vithiananthan is an accomplished surgeon, educator, researcher and leader who is excited about the opportunity to grow our surgery program," said CHA CEO Assaad Sayah, MD. In addition to his administrative responsibilities, Dr. Vithiananthan will be seeing patients at CHA's surgical specialties centers and performing surgeries at its Cambridge and Everett Hospitals. His expertise includes minimally invasive surgery for benign and malignant diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, hernia repairs, anti-reflux and hiatal hernia procedures and surgery of the spleen and adrenal gland. He is also an expert in robotic surgical techniques in general surgery.
Prior to joining CHA, Dr. Vithiananthan led a busy clinical practice in minimally invasive and robotic approaches to gastrointestinal diseases, complex hernias and bariatric (weight loss and metabolic) surgery at Brown Physicians Inc. and Brown Surgical Associates in Providence, R.I. He was the chief of bariatric and minimally invasive surgery at The Miriam Hospital and medical director of the Center for Bariatric Surgery at The Miriam and Rhode Island Hospitals. He optimized quality and improved outcomes in patients undergoing surgery, implemented initiatives that decreased length-of-stay and reduced the 30-day readmission rate while guiding the bariatric surgery program to achieve top box scores in all patient care areas in HCAHPS with the majority at 99th percentile scores.
Additionally, Dr. Vithiananthan was a professor of surgery, clinician educator at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and the site-director of the Brown Surgical Residency and Medical Student Programs at The Miriam Hospital. His main research focus is on social determinants of healthcare and the metabolic and physiological effects of weight loss surgery. He has partnered with the device industry for innovation in new surgical technology for the treatment of obesity, and he is a co-author of multiple patents resulting from this collaboration. He also sits on the editorial board of Journal of Surgery of Obesity and Related Diseases and contributes as a reviewer for Surgical Endoscopy and Obesity Surgery.
Having served in leadership capacities in many national and international surgical societies, Dr. Vithiananthan has been invited around the world to offer his expertise in training surgeons. He was nominated by the International College of Surgery to serve as the inaugural surgical ambassador in minimally invasive surgery to Nanjing Medical University in Nanjing, China. He has trained hundreds of surgeons in China, Sri Lanka and Hungary in the techniques of minimally invasive surgery over the last decade. He has also received many accolades as an outstanding teacher by surgical societies, peers, residents and students.
Dr. Vithiananthan is board certified in general surgery and surgical critical care and fellowship trained in advanced laparoscopic surgery and surgical critical care. He received his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. He completed his residency at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass., and fellowships at New York Presbyterian Hospital and the University of Connecticut School of Medicine/Hartford Hospital. He lives with his wife and three children in Sharon, Mass.