- Chair and Executive Medical Director of the Department of Surgery
- Surgeon-in-Chief of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center
- Chief of the Division of General Surgery
Dr. O. Joe Hines is the Chair and Executive Medical Director of the Department of Surgery, Surgeon-in-Chief of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Robert and Kelly Day Chair in General Surgery. He is an established surgeon-scientist focused in the field of pancreatology and cares for patients with pancreatic and gastrointestinal disease. Dr. Hines is a nationally renowned scholar in the areas of pancreatic surgery, complex abdominal surgery, and advanced laparoscopic surgery.
He obtained his MD from the University of Oklahoma in 1990, completed his surgery residency at UCLA in 1997, and then joined the UCLA Department of Surgery where he has been for his entire career. From 2005-2015 he was the UCLA Surgery Program Director and has received the Department Golden Scalpel Teaching Award 12 times. Dr. Hines’ research program has been consistently funded by NIH, and, with over 220 publications, he has focused on pancreatic disease including both pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer. His laboratory studies pancreatic carcinogenesis, including the role of diet in modulating these processes, and has received over $25 million dollars in federal/private funding. In 2008, Dr. Hines received the UCLA School of Medicine Award for Excellence in Education and was selected as the 2022 Sherman M. Mellinkoff Faculty Award recipient. The award, which recognizes physicians who establish close doctor-patient relationships of high ethical standards, is considered by faculty to be the highest honor from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Dr. Hines serves on the editorial boards of Surgery, Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery, JAMA Surgery, Annals of Surgery, and is an editor of Maignot’s Abdominal Operations. Nationally, Dr. Hines is the immediate past Chair of the American Board of Surgery, immediate past President of the American Pancreatic Association, and served as President of the Society of University Surgeons, Vice-President of the Pacific Coast Surgical Association, President of the Southern California Chapter of the American College of Surgeons, and Governor of the American College of Surgeons. He currently serves as the President of the Society of University Surgeons Foundation.