Sivamainthan Vithiananthan, MD MHCM FACS FASMBS FICS

Sivamainthan “Siva” Vithiananthan, MD MHCM FACS FASMBS FICS, is an academic, minimally invasive, robotic surgeon specializing in Bariatric and Metabolic Surgery. He is the Chief of Surgery at Cambridge Health Alliance, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA. He is an Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, an Adjunct Professor of Surgery, and a Clinician Educator at Alpert Medical School at Brown University. He is Board Certified in General and Critical Care Surgery. He served as the 2024 President of the International College of Surgeons (ICS), US Section, and serves in the Executive Council of the ICS World Body.

Before April 2021, he served as a Professor of Surgery and Clinician Educator at Alpert Medical School at Brown University, and as the Site-Director of the Brown Surgical Residency and Medical Student Programs at The Miriam Hospital in Rhode Island. Dr. Vithiananthan received his medical degree from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and is board-certified in general surgery and critical surgical care. He is fellowship-trained in advanced laparoscopic surgery (Columbia) and Surgical Critical Care (Hartford Hospital). Dr. Vithiananthan pursued an advanced degree in healthcare leadership at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and received his MHCM degree in May 2023.

He is also a longstanding member of ACS, SAGES, ASMBS, and IFSO. In the last decade, he led changes in the bariatric surgical programs in Rhode Island’s most extensive health system—the BrownHealth System. He was chosen as one of the inaugural site reviewers for the American College of Surgeons/ASMBS accreditation process for the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Quality Improvement Program. He has received recognition for his leadership in improving across-the-board top box patient experience scores in bariatric surgery at RIH–Miriam Hospitals.

Dr. Vithiananthan partnered with the device industry for innovation in new surgical techniques for treating obesity. He is a co-author of multiple patents that resulted from this collaboration. He also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases and is a journal reviewer for other peer-reviewed journals such as Surgical Endoscopy and Obesity Surgery.

Dr. Vithiananthan serves in leadership capacities in numerous national and international surgical societies and is invited to offer his expertise in training surgeons in various countries, including as the inaugural surgical ambassador from the ICS to Nanjing Medical University, China. He is an honorary member of the Paraguayan Surgical Society. He has worked closely with Tiradentes University in Sergipe, Brazil, and the University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, as a visiting professor.

As Chief of Surgery at Cambridge Health Alliance, he has instituted numerous innovative programs to enhance surgical care and outcomes. These include establishing a new safe surgery program with the help of CRICO, establishing a successful multidisciplinary robotic program, implementing NSQIP surgical outcome programs in surgery, OBGYN, and Orthopedics, revamping preadmissions testing, improving on-time starts in the OR, and launching a community engagement program for surgeons. His research and leadership interests lie in mobile technology, surgical patient preparation, quality improvement, and safe surgery through technology, as well as healthcare disparities. Dr. Vithiananthan has received over a dozen teaching awards and AOA recognition from Brown University as a faculty member.