This fall, the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery welcomes a new Section of Thoracic Surgery chief, James M. Donahue, M.D. Donahue comes to UAB from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he had an active clinical practice focused on thoracic surgical oncology and served as chief of thoracic surgery at the Baltimore VA Medical Center.

Dr. James Donahue“I am looking forward to building on the level of clinical excellence in thoracic surgery established at UAB by Dr. Cerfolio, as well as expanding the academic focus of our division,” Donahue said. “This effort will involve developing an even more robust multidisciplinary thoracic oncology program and expanding our work in clinical and basic science research, as well as in resident education.”

Donahue is a former Navy reservist and was deployed with a forward surgical team in Afghanistan in 2013. In addition to his clinical interests, Donahue also runs a basic science research laboratory focused on post-transcriptional gene regulation in esophageal cancer cells as a way of identifying new therapeutic targets for management of this disease.

“Dr. Donahue is a skilled thoracic surgeon with clinical and research interests that I believe will benefit the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery immensely,” said Department of Surgery Director Herbert Chen, M.D. “As chief of the division’s thoracic surgery section, he will be able to put his experience to work for our department in a leadership role.”

Donahue explained that he is excited to work with the department’s faculty and to join the UAB Surgery team.

“I was initially drawn to UAB by my friendship with Dr. Jamey Davies, with whom I did my cardiothoracic surgical residency training,” Donahue said. “Once I came to visit UAB, I was extremely impressed with the experience and dedication of the general thoracic surgery team and excited by the opportunity to work with Dr. Ben Wei to continue to develop this outstanding unit. As a scientist, I was struck by UAB’s commitment to basic science research and the spirit of collaboration that I sensed throughout the institution.”