CHANGE MAKERS RONALD P. DEMATTEO

M.D., F.A.C.S. is the John Rhea Barton Professor of Surgery and Chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. DeMatteo is a surgical oncologist who is nationally recognized for his expertise in treating diseases of the liver, bile duct, gallbladder, pancreas, abdominal sarcomas, and gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST). His clinical research is focused on liver, bile duct, gallbladder, and pancreas cancers.

Dr. DeMatteo completed his surgical residency and two postdoctoral fellowships at Penn Medicine in Molecular Biology and Virology with Steven E. Raper, M.D. and James M. Wilson, M.D., Ph.D. and in Immunology and Transplantation with Clyde F. Barker, M.D. He returned to Penn Medicine in July 2017 as Chair of Surgery, after 20 years spent at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). He served as Vice Chair of the Department of Surgery and Head of the Division of General Surgical Oncology at MSKCC. He was also Professor of Surgery and Associate Dean at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. At Penn, Dr. DeMatteo leads 140 faculty across 11 divisions who provide advanced patient care and conduct a robust portfolio of basic and clinical research.

Over the course of his career, Dr. DeMatteo has made significant research advances studying the immune environment of the liver and tumor immunology and working to develop immune therapies to help prevent tumors from returning after surgery. He has served as the principal investigator on three national trials of the adjuvant drug imatinib following surgery to remove gastrointestinal stromal tumors, leading to its approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a new standard of care for the disease. A well-respected educator, Dr. DeMatteo was Director of the Surgical Oncology Fellowship Program for seven years at MSKCC, and he has mentored more than 135 clinical and laboratory fellows. Since 2013 Dr. DeMatteo has been listed in the U.S. News and World Reports America’s Top Doctors list. He earned his medical degree from the Weill Medical College of Cornell University.

Tell us about your work. I have the greatest job on the planet. It's more like a lifestyle, I would say because I have a lot of different jobs. My primary job is that I'm a cancer surgeon who operates mostly in the upper abdomen, the liver, the stomach, the pancreas, and gallbladder. I'm also an educator who trains young, surgical people and medical students. Additionally, I do research, and I run a lab. I've had the lab since 1999. It's government-funded, which is how most scientific research is funded in this country, and I have about eight or so people in it. We study a particular cancer that I treat clinically. Lastly, I lead the Department of Surgery at Penn Medicine and oversee about 140 faculty members in the department. I have a lot of great jobs.

You knew that you wanted to be a surgeon since 1st Grade. How did you know this is what you wanted to do? I don't know exactly what led to that conclusion, but I liked taking things apart and fixing things. I used to make tiny model airplanes, and I just liked the satisfaction of working with my hands. I figured surgery was a good way to do that and at the same time help other people. I didn’t consider much else after that.

You're the Chair of the Department of Surgery at Penn Medicine, what would you say sets you apart from other surgeons? Most other surgeons don't have as many jobs. I was fortunate to grow up in environments that allowed me to experience and get excited about doing a lot of different things. I had some world-famous mentors on the surgery side, and I was at Memorial Sloane Kettering for twenty years. A lot of things have happened in my career that have simply worked out well.

I was in the right place at the right time a couple times in my career. During my training, I stumbled upon an uncommon tumor, which at the time, was hardly being studied. It's called a Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor (GIST). This positioned me to do a lot of different things in my career that most surgeons don't do. I led a national trial that led to the FDA approval of a drug to be taken after the surgery for this particular tumor. It's very unusual for a surgeon to run a national trial, but I was able to do that because nobody else was