Five of the department of surgery’s nine clinical divisions welcomed new faculty at the beginning of September. Among them are three UK College of Medicine alumni, two of whom also attended surgery residency programs, who chose to return to the university to teach residents and serve the needs of UK’s patients.
Erin Wolf Horrell, MD, PhD – Colon and Rectal Surgery
Before embarking on a pathway into surgery, Dr. Erin Wolf Horrell earned her PhD in physiology and her medical degree from the UK College of Medicine in 2018. She graduated summa cum laude and earned Alpha Omega Alpha honors.
She matched into the general surgery residency program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and, upon its completion, stayed with the university to serve a year as a Colorectal Surgery fellow.
As a resident and fellow, Dr. Wolf Horrell received The William (Bill) Riordan Jr., MD, Resident Award in recognition of her commitment to patient care. In 2023, medical students honored her skills as a surgery educator with a Medical Student Teaching Award.
Tim Horrell, MD, FACS – General, Endocrine, and Metabolic Surgery
After completing the General Surgery Residency program at the University of Kentucky in 2019, Dr. Tim Horrell’s first professional appointment was with the United States Army as a general surgeon at Blanchfield Army Community Hospital in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
Dr. Horrell spent the majority of his active military service at Blanchfield Hospital, but he also served in two deployments. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, he spent seven months at the 411 Hospital Center in Kuwait and Baghdad, Iraq as part of a medical task force supporting Operation Inherent Resolve.
In August 2021, Dr. Horrell was attached to the 274th Forward Resuscitative Surgical Detachment (FRSD) as part of Operation Allies Refuge, an effort to evacuate at-risk Afghan civilians, American embassy representatives, and other non-combatants during the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.
Prior to joining the UK Surgery faculty, Dr. Horrell completed the advanced GI minimally invasive surgery/bariatric surgery fellowship at Vanderbilt University.
Christopher Howell, MD – Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
After graduating summa cum laude from Wake Forest University, Dr. Chris Howell spent the next decade at the University of Kentucky. Upon his graduation from the UK College of Medicine, he earned the Albert B. Chandler Award, which is given to the top-performing medical students from each class.
He subsequently matched into the plastic and reconstructive surgery integrated residency program where he was twice recognized for achieving the highest in-service score. Dr. Howell was honored with the annual Plastic Surgery Resident Teaching Award at his graduation.
In July, Dr. Howell completed a microvascular surgery fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Masashi Kawabori, MD, FACS – Cardiothoracic Surgery Division, Director of Mechanical Circulatory Support (MCS)
Dr. Masashi Kawabori is a board-certified cardiac surgery/heart and lung transplantation surgeon and a recognized clinical researcher. As an associate professor with the division of cardiac surgery at Tufts University in Boston, he combined a busy clinical practice with service as the division’s research director for the last five years.
He followed a rigorous path of cardiac surgery residency training at several hospitals in his native Japan, which included three years in cardiac surgery at Yamato Seiwa Hospital in Kanagawa and Tokyo Bay Medical Center in Chiba. He also served a year devoted to cardiovascular surgery at Kameda Medical Center in Chiba.
Following his residency training, Dr. Kawabori came to the United States in 2014 to serve as an advanced cardiac surgery fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He broadened his surgical training into heart/lung transplantation and mechanical circulatory support (MCS) in a fellowship at the Texas Heart Institute at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
His passion for research and education is reflected in his published research and his service on the editorial boards of leading peer-reviewed journals such as Annals of Thoracic Surgery and the ASAIHO Journal. The Annals of Thoracic Surgery named Dr. Kawabori reviewer of the year for adult cardiac surgery in 2021.
As an educator, Dr. Kawabori has mentored several medical school students and residents in their personal research projects.
In addition to his surgical practice at UK HealthCare, Dr. Kawabori will work in collaboration with Dr. Dongfang Wang in the Artificial Organ Laboratory in the department of surgery on developing new types of MCS support for heart/lung failure.
Helen Wei, MD, PhD – Acute Care Surgery, Trauma, and Critical Care Surgery
The UK Department of Surgery trauma surgery division welcomed its second full-time faculty member to the provider roster. Dr. Helen Wei, board-certified in surgical critical care and general surgery, began her practice at the University of Kentucky in October.
Just a few months ago, she completed a two-year fellowship in Surgical Critical Care and Acute Care Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. In parallel with other new trauma faculty this year, Dr. Wei has a keen interest in global surgery.
She spent a week at the University of Rwanda Huye campus in the capital city of Butare participating in global surgery trauma education with local surgeons and surgery residents. Earlier in 2024, she spent a month on Johannesburg, South Africa treating trauma patients as part of her fellowship.
Dr. Wei has a wide range of clinical research interests for which she earned her doctorate from the University of Rochester School of Medicine in 2016. These include neuroscience, cerebral blood flow, enteric nervous system, and small bowel ischemia. In terms of practice and quality improvement, she has interests in improving communication and relationships among providers in the trauma team.
Dr. Wei attended the General Surgery Residency program at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School where she was a “Golden Apple” nominee, a teaching award, by medical students.
Leah K. Winer, MD – Division of Surgical Oncology
Dr. Leah Winer is the latest surgeon to join the surgical oncology division faculty in the last two years.
In the spring of 2024, she finished a two-year fellowship in complex general surgical oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.
Her general surgery residency was at the University of Cincinnati. In addition to her surgery training, Dr. Winer spent two years as a research resident studying murine models of chronic critical illness and was co-author of several journal articles on clinical outcomes in surgical oncology and transplantation, as well as general surgery residency education.