Debra Sudan MD

Debra L. Sudan, MD, Chief, Division of Abdominal Transplant Surgery Professor of Surgery, Professor in Pediatrics Duke University School of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center Durham, North Carolina

Dr. Sudan chose medicine as her career because it was the perfect way to combine her love of learning and being challenged with her desire to make a positive difference in people's lives. During Dr.Sudan’s general surgery residency, she gravitated toward transplantation because of the immediate and profound impact it can have on someone’s health and quality of life. After completing a transplant fellowship at the University of Nebraska, she practiced surgery in Omaha, Nebraska for 14 years before coming to Duke to become the Surgical Director of the nationally renowned transplant program. As an abdominal transplant surgeon, Dr. Sudan performs surgery on people of all ages needing organ transplantation, with particular expertise in the areas of liver and small bowel transplants. In 2021 she was named a Master Surgeon by her colleagues at Duke University and the first female to receive this prestigious award. Her research focuses on improving intestine graft preservation in order to improve the early outcomes for intestine transplant recipients. She hopes that her work will improve opportunities for intestine transplant candidates with life-threatening complications of their disease or of their TPN and for those who have a poor quality of life on TPN to undergo successful intestine transplantation.