Residency Leadership

Timothy Donahue, MD is the director for the General Surgery Residency Training Program. Dr. Donahue is a Professor of Surgery and Chief of the Division of Surgical Oncology, with a dual appointment in the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology. Dr. Donahue has a robust clinical practice focused on the surgical management of pancreatic diseases in addition to an NIH funded laboratory focused on developing improved treatment strategies and earlier diagnostic markers for patients with pancreatic cancer. Dr. Donahue brings great expertise as an excellent clinician, committed educator, and productive scientist to the Training Program.

Vatche Agopian, MD is an Associate Program Director for the General Surgery Residency Training Program and an Associate Professor of Surgery in the Division of Liver and Pancreas Transplantation. In addition to his clinical and research activities in liver transplantation, liver cancer, and hepatobiliary surgery, Dr. Agopian is actively involved in resident and medical student education and is the director of the surgical skills curriculum for the general surgery residents at UCLA.

Catherine Lewis, MD, MEd is an Associate Program Director for the General Surgery Residency Training Program and an Associate Professor of Surgery. She holds a Master of Education in the Health Professions and assists in the creation and administration of the resident education curriculum. Dr. Lewis is responsible for the intern-chief resident mentoring program (AKA S.T.A.M.P.), ABSITE remediation, and resident and faculty evaluations. Clinically, she is a dedicated, hands-on, and enthusiastic educator on both the trauma service and in the surgical ICU.

Areti Tillou, MD is the Vice Chair for Education for the School of Medicine and Department of Surgery and a Professor of Surgery. She has previously served as Associate Director of the General Surgery Residency Training Program. A talented acute care surgeon, Dr. Tillou is extremely involved in ensuring the highest quality education for surgical residents. She is responsible for resident teaching curriculum, including didactic sessions, dry skills labs, cadaver labs, and simulation sessions.

James Wu, MD is the Associate Director for Surgical Education and an Assistant Professor of Surgery. Dr. Wu works alongside Dr. Tillou to curate the formal surgery curriculum. His other initiatives include video-based assessment of operative skill, implementing a deliberate practice framework for surgery training, and the UCLA surgery operative technique wiki page. Along with other key faculty, Dr. Wu is also responsible for our annual multi-institutional resident mock oral examination. Dr. Wu practices endocrine and general surgery and performs translational and health services research as a part of the Endocrine Surgery Research Group.

Chi Quach is the Program Coordinator for the General Surgery Residency Training Program.

Andrea Mclean is the Program Coordinator for the General Surgery Residency Training Program.