Global Surgery Team | UC Davis Health

Assistant Professor of Surgery
Director, Center for Global Surgery

Cameron Gaskill, M.D. is a board-certified surgical oncologist with expertise in global cancer care and surgical quality improvement. He has extensive experience in global and public health, having worked in sub-Saharan Africa building programs to increase capacity in the screening, diagnosis, and treatment of cancers through cancer registries, training programs, and international advocacy.

Assistant Professor of Surgery 
Associate Director, Center for Global Surgery 

Jamie Anderson, M.D. is a pediatric general and thoracic surgeon at UC Davis Children’s Hospital and Shriners Hospital for Children, Northern California.  She is interested in global and rural surgery, with research focused on improving surgical outcomes and access to surgical care for children of all ages. She has been a significant contributor to the progress and expansion of the Global Initiative for Children’s Surgery (GICS), a non-profit aimed at providing safe and equitable access to surgical care in low and middle-income countries.

Chair of Department of Surgery

Diana Farmer, M.D., Chair of the Department of Surgery at UC Davis has long been a champion for equitable access to pediatric surgical care in resource-limited countries. Beginning with on the groundwork in Senegal in 1998 and Uganda she has mentored many global health focused surgical scholars over the course of her career, including sponsoring 3 Fulbright Scholars. She was the founder and inaugural president of the Global Initiative for Children’s Surgery, a nonprofit organization to build safe and effective surgical care for children worldwide. She has also mentored numerous trainees in global surgery, many of which are leaders in the field today. In recognition of this extraordinary leadership she was awarded the U21 award in 2020 for her contribution to internationalization of higher education and global improvements in surgical care. 

Travis T. Tollefson, M.D. is a Professor of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery and Director of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at UC Davis, specializing in cleft and pediatric craniofacial care, facial reconstruction and facial trauma care. He has both mentored individual surgeons at their home institutions and conducted courses to educate groups of surgeons in Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Cambodia, Thailand, Haiti, Ecuador, and Russia. He is active in research in improving the ability of a patient in resource poor setting to receive safe surgical access for life-preserving surgery.

Shinjiro Hirose, M.D. is a Professor of Surgery and Chief of Pediatric General, Thoracic, and Fetal Surgery at UC Davis, with a joint appointment as Director of Pediatric Surgery at Shriners Hospital for Children.  Hirose is a nationally recognized pediatric cancer surgeon specializing in minimally invasive hepatobiliary and chest wall deformities in fetuses and children.  Hirose has a long established relationship with providers in Guatemala, providing education and patient care. 

Misty Humphries, M.D. specializes in open vascular and advanced endovascular treatment for arterial and venous disease. Her primary clinic interest is in endovascular treatment of complex peripheral artery disease, telemedicine, and thoracic outlet syndrome. Her NIH funded research focuses on prevention of lower extremity amputations for patients in rural clinics with peripheral artery disease and the use of telemedicine to bring multidisciplinary wound care to rural communities.

Ian Powelson, M.D. is an Assistant Professor of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at UC Davis. He has completed fellowships in both hand and burn surgery, and provides burn reconstructive services to both adults and children at UC Davis Medical Center and Shriners Hospital Northern California. Burn sequalae disproportionate affect patients in low- and middle-income countries due to the lack of acute burn care.  Powelson is passionate about improving burn care abroad and at home by collaborating with burn surgeons in around the world.

James Littlejohn, M.D. is the Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at UC Davis with expertise in cardiothoracic , trauma, and liver transplant related anesthesiology and critical care medicine.  Littlejohn leads the liver anesthesia program at UC Davis and is passionate about increasing liver surgical capacity in low resource settings.  Littlejohn has served on medical mission trips in Bangladesh and India working with Rotaplast International as well as worked on medical school curricula at the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda and Perdana University in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Miquell Miller, M.D. is a Colorectal Surgeon and Assistant Professor of Surgery at UC Davis. She also serves as the Director of UC Davis National Accreditation Program for Rectal Cancer.  Miller’s research focuses on patient outcomes, communication, and coordination of care for patients with colorectal diseases to improve health outcomes and healthcare disparities. She obtained both her medical degree and master's degree in Heatlh Policy from Stanford University and completed her fellowship training at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital. She is originally from the Bahamas and understands the challenges of access to healthcare in third world countries like her home. She hopes to improve healthcare disparities in the US and in third world countries. One of the projects she has worked on was providing funding for disaster medical relief in collaboration with the Red Cross to the island of Abaco, Bahamas after the devastation of Hurricane Dorian. She hopes to continue similar projects globally to improve access to surgical infrastructure and medical education.

Richard Perez, M.D. is a nationally recognized Transplant Surgeon specializing in kidney transplantation and hemodialysis vascular access. He serves as Director of the Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Program and Chief of Transplant Surgery at UC Davis.  Perez’s research focuses on using unconventional deceased donor kidneys and developing ex vivo normothermic perfusion preservation to assess and repair injured kidneys for transplantation. 

Medical Student UC Davis School of Medicine
Anne C. Carter Grant Awardee
Project: Gastric Cancer in Roatan, Honduras: Feasibility of a Symptomatic Screening Program and Endoscopy Capacity Assessment for Early Detection of Gastric Cancer in Roatan Honduras 

Ph.D. Candidate at University of Witwatersrand
Project: The Epidemiology of Stomach Cancer in South Africa

UC Davis Health Medical Center

Global Surgery Fellow (2022-2023)