The Triangle Business Journal named UNC Surgery’s Andrea Hayes-Jordan, MD, Byah Thomason Doxey-Sanford Doxey Distinguished Professor and Chief of the Division of General Pediatric Surgery, as one of its 2020 Health Care Heroes. She was presented with the award at a ceremony on Feb. 13.
Dr. Hayes-Jordan was honored for her outstanding accomplishments as a surgeon, teacher, and leader. Dr. Andrea Hayes-Jordan is the Chief of the Division of Pediatric Surgery at the UNC School of Medicine, and Surgeon in Chief for UNC Children’s Hospital. Dr. Hayes-Jordan was the first African American female pediatric surgeon board certified in the United States and is an internationally recognized leader in pediatric surgery and pediatric oncology. She was the first surgeon to perform cytoreductive surgery and Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy (HIPEC) in a pediatric patient.
With more than 15 years of experience, Dr. Hayes-Jordan specializes in treating desmoplastic small round cell tumors (DSRCT), a rare sarcoma, which spreads throughout the abdominal and chest cavity. The procedure, which can last from 12 to 22 hours long removing hundreds if not thousands of tiny tumors, has since doubled the survival rates for patients. The survival for the disease was 15% to 30% over five years, but it has since improved to about 60% with aggressive surgery. Dr. Hayes-Jordan has treated patients from across the globe and traveled extensively in the United States and abroad, teaching the operation to other surgeons.
As the Chief of Pediatric Surgery at UNC, Dr. Hayes-Jordan continues to lead the fight against desmoplastic small round cell tumors. In her laboratory, she has developed a first-of-its-kind mouse model that duplicates human DSRCT, allowing scientists for the first time to study the disease in an animal model that replicates the spread of tumors seen in human patients. In the clinical setting, Hayes-Jordan studies refractory and resistant sarcoma tumors, and has conducted clinical trials establishing the proper dosage of chemotherapy for children receiving Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy.
Dr. Hayes-Jordan was presented with the Byah Thomason Doxey-Sanford Doxey Distinguished Professorship in September 2019. Dr. Hayes-Jordan is recognized as an academic surgeon-scientist, world-renowned for work in pioneering the cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) for children. Hayes-Jordan is also currently a member of the editorial board for the National Cancer Institute’s Pediatric Disease Query and in October 2019 was appointed as a member of the National Cancer Advisory Board by President Trump.
About Dr. Andrea Hayes-Jordan
A native of Los Angeles, Dr. Hayes-Jordan graduated from Dartmouth College and later Dartmouth Medical School. She completed her residency training at the University of California Davis-East Bay, a molecular biology fellowship at UC-San Francisco, a pediatric surgical oncology fellowship at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, a melanoma and sarcoma fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center, and a pediatric surgery fellowship at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. She served as the Director of Pediatric Surgery and Pediatric Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She also served as Residency Program Director and Pediatric Surgical Oncology Fellowship Director.