Shawn J Pelletier, MD
Liver Transplant Surgery
Additional Locations
Bio & Overview
Shawn J. Pelletier, MD, is an associate professor in the Department of Surgery, Division of Transplantation Surgery at the University of Virginia Health System. Dr. Pelletier received his medical degree from Hahnemann University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, PA, in 1996. He completed his general surgery residency in 2003 at the University of Virginia. Dr. Pelletier went on to complete a two-year fellowship in transplantation surgery at the University of Michigan Health System, and in 2005, he joined the faculty at the University of Michigan. In 2007, he became the assistant director of the Multi-disciplinary Liver Tumor Clinic at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center in Ann Arbor, MI. A year later, he became the surgical director of liver transplantation at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Pelletier returned to the University of Virginia in 2012 as the surgical director of liver transplantation. His clinical interests focus on living and deceased donor liver transplants, minimally invasive (laparoscopic) liver resection, as well as other aspects of hepatobiliary surgery. His research focuses on the outcomes following liver transplants and the development of donation following cardiac death.
He is board certified by the American Board of Surgery, and he is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Additionally, he's a member of professional and scientific societies, including the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease, the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, the International Liver Transplant Society, the International Liver Cancer Association and the American Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association. He is widely published in scientific and professional journals on topics related to his research and clinical experience. Dr. Pelletier has over ten years of experience as a principal investigator in basic and translational research and clinical trials. His research has been funded by the NIH/NIDDK as well as HRSA.
Academic Information
- Department
- Surgery
- Academic Role
- Professor
- Division
- Transplant Surgery
- Research Interests
- Hepatocellular carcinoma, expanding organ donation, donation following cardiac death, liver transplantation, minimally invasive liver surgery, living donor liver transplantation
- Gender
- Male
- Languages
- English
- Age Groups Seen
- Adults (21-65)
Older Adults (65+)
- Primary Education
- Drexel University College of Medicine
- Residency
- University of Virginia School of Medicine
- Fellowships
- University of Virginia School of Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School
- Certification
- American Board of Surgery (Thoracic and Cardiac Surgery)
Highlights
My name is Shawn Pelletier. I'm the Surgical Director of Liver Transplantation at the University of Virginia. The most common patient that I see is someone who has liver failure and needs a liver transplant. My role is to see them before they need a liver transplant to decide if that's something that would benefit them. We also help in the pretransplant period to keep them in the best shape on the list, and then as a surgeon I perform the transplant surgery and then take care for the patients after. I grew up New Hampshire and I really didn't even quite know what the job of a physician was, but as a pharmacy student, as an undergraduate, I rotated with other physicians and got interested in pursuing medicine. I always imagined that I'd go back to New Hampshire and work in some small area, and instead I ended up doing the exact opposite of kind of going into a very highly specialized field of liver transplant. I think the most important thing for patients to know is that we're going to approach your care as a team. From our perspective, that means social work, financial, nursing, medicine, surgery, but also you and your family too so that you put together your own team of family members to help take care of you before and after, and then obviously the patient themself is the most important member of the team. We work for you is what I tell my patients.
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