Dr. Waddah B. Al-Refaie

MedStar Health, John S. Dillon Chair in Surgical Oncology - MD, FACS serves MedStar Health and Georgetown University as the founding Regional Chief of Surgical Oncology, John S. Dillon Chair in Surgical Oncology and Surgeon in Chief of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Biography

His clinical areas of interest are in GI oncology, namely stomach cancer, soft tissue sarcomas and melanomas. He is one of the busiest gastric cancer and sarcoma surgeons in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia metro area. Recently, he was named by The Washingtonian as one of the Top Doctors in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. In his role at MedStar Health and Georgetown University, Dr. Al-Refaie oversees the operation, research, outreach, and education of the surgical oncology service line across the MedStar Washington Region, namely across MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and MedStar Washington Hospital Center. In his leadership role as the Vice-Chair for Research, he oversees all of the research endeavors, protocols, and research enhancing activities conducted by the faculty, residents and students within MedStar Washington Regional Surgical Services. Inspired by his previous leadership experience in Minnesota, he created and now leads the MedStar-Georgetown Surgical Outcomes Research Center (MG-SORC). The mission of MG-SORC is to ameliorate the burden of surgical disease through effective care and research. MG-SORC focuses on three important research areas in surgery: 1) quality improvement, 2) impact of health policy on access to and quality of surgery, 3) surgical disparities especially among vulnerable populations. Al-Refaie is a fellowship trained surgical oncologist. He obtained his medical degree from The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 1997. After a finishing an internship at The Amiri Hospital in Kuwait, he completed his residency at the University of California San Diego in 2004. He then completed a fellowship at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in 2006. Prior to Georgetown, Dr. Al-Refaie served as the Co-director of the University of Minnesota Surgical Outcomes Research Center where he co-led a group of research analysts and mentored several surgical residents. He has published close to 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts uncovering various aspects, variations, and disparities in surgical care. He also attained research funding in these areas. He has written several book chapters on stomach cancers and soft tissue sarcomas and has been an invited lecturer in areas of both his clinical and research interests. Dr. Al-Refaie has mentored several surgeons, residents, and students in surgical oncology, outcomes research, and education. He leads the annual MedStar Georgetown Gastric and Soft Tissue Neoplasms Symposiums. He also started and leads the MedStar Surgical Oncology journal club. Al-Refaie has received numerous scientific and teaching awards throughout his career. Al-Refaie is a member of several prestigious surgical and cancer societies including The American College of Surgeons, Society of University Surgeons, Surgical Biology, American Society of Clinical Oncology, The Southern Surgical Association, and The American Surgical Association.