| Richard H. Bell, Jr., M.D., recently joined the American Board of Surgery as the Assistant Executive Director. His primary focus is on facilitating the development of a standardized surgery residency curriculum, in concert with the other principal U.S. organizations involved in surgical education. Additionally, Dr. Bell is participating in examination development and contributing to the growth of the ABS Maintenance of Certification Program.
Prior to joining the ABS staff in August 2006, Dr. Bell was the Loyal and Edith Davis Professor and Chair of the department of surgery at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. In addition he was the Program Director for the General Surgery residency program, and served as surgeon-in-chief at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
A native of Providence, Rhode Island, Dr. Bell earned his bachelor's degree at Princeton University and medical degree at Northwestern University. He completed a general surgical residency and a transplantation fellowship at the University of Colorado Medical Center in Denver. After two years as a major in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, he joined the faculty at the University of California at San Diego as an assistant professor of surgery. In 1983 Dr. Bell was appointed associate professor of surgery at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, where he rose to chief of the general surgery section and chief of surgical service at the Cincinnati Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center. In 1994 he joined the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle as professor and vice-chair of the department of surgery and served as chief of surgical service for the VA Puget Sound Health Care System.
Dr. Bell is a past president of the Association for Academic Surgery and the Pancreas Club, current Vice-President of the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract, and has been an active member of the Society of University Surgeons and the Association of VA Surgeons. In 2002 he was elected to the American Board of Surgery as a representative of the American Surgical Association and has served as chair of the ABS' General Surgery Residency Committee. Dr. Bell is also a member of the Board of Governors of the American College of Surgeons.
The primary focus of Dr. Bell‚s practice was on gastrointestinal surgery with clinical interests focused on surgery for chronic pancreatitis as well as pancreatic cancer. He has a long-standing interest in pancreatic diseases and had extramural research funding for more than 20 years from the Veterans Administration and from the National Institutes of Health for the study of pancreatic cancer. Dr. Bell has written numerous articles, book chapters and edited a major textbook in digestive tract surgery. He has also participated on the editorial board of Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Surgery and Pancreas.
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