Andrea Hayes-Jordan, MD, FACS, FAAP, a pioneering surgeon and researcher, has been named Chief of the Division of Pediatric Surgery at the UNC School of Medicine, and Surgeon in Chief at the North Carolina Children’s Hospital. She will officially join the UNC School of Medicine faculty effective June 1, 2018.
Hayes-Jordan comes to Chapel Hill from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston where she serves as the Director of Pediatric Surgery and Pediatric Oncology. She also serves as Residency Program Director and Pediatric Surgical Oncology Fellowship Director.
“I am thrilled to be joining the Tar Heel family and look forward to leading the UNC Children’s Hospital to a bright future in continued excellent service to the children of North Carolina,” said Dr. Hayes-Jordan.
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. During these operations, which can last from 12 to 22 hours, hundreds of malignant tumors are removed from the patient’s abdomen. This novel procedure has doubled the survival rates for patients with Desmoplastic Small Round Cell Tumor (DSRCT), a rare sarcoma. As the surgeon who pioneered this procedure, 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.
In addition to her clinical accomplishments, Dr. Hayes-Jordan is noted as both a basic science and clinical researcher. In her laboratory, she focuses on the study of rare sarcomas. 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. In all, she has published more than 80 peer-reviewed manuscripts.
As an educator, Dr. Hayes-Jordan has a particular interest in mentoring young women interested in academic surgery.
“We are incredibly fortunate to have Dr. Hayes-Jordan join us at UNC,” said Melina R. Kibbe, MD, Colin G. Thomas Jr. Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery. “She is an outstanding role model to all who work with her and exemplifies all three missions of our academic medical center.”
Dr. Hayes-Jordan is also a leader across several professional organizations. She has served on the executive committee of the Children’s Oncology Group sarcoma committee for the past decade. She is a member of the American Surgical Association, has been chair of the cancer committee of the American Pediatric Surgery Association, held the position of program chair for the Society of Black Academic Surgeons, and is a governor of the American College of Surgeons.
“We are thrilled to have Dr. Hayes-Jordan joining the UNC Children’s team,” said Ian Buchanan, MD, MPH, Senior Vice President for Operations and Chief Research Officer, UNC Health Care. “She will bolster our already outstanding pediatric oncology services and be a great leader for pediatric surgery.”
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 joined The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Children’s Cancer Hospital in 2004.
Dr. Hayes-Jordan and her husband have two children.