Keck School of Medicine faculty member and director of Pancreas Transplantation, Kiran Dhanireddy, MD, has been appointed chief medical officer of USC Care. Dhanireddy will serve as the lead clinical administrator, oversee quality and patient safety concerns, create and implement quality initiatives, and foster physician advocacy and engagement. He will also take lead on regulatory and policy matters, ensuring the policies that govern care are in alignment with other Keck Medical Center and University policies that promote the delivery of safe, high quality, high value care.

Dhanireddy will report administratively to Rod Hanners, CEO, Keck Medical Center of USC and COO, Keck Medicine of USC, and coordinate closely with the clinical chairs led by Rohit Varma, MD, MPH, interim dean of Keck School of Medicine of USC and president of USC Care.

Dhanireddy joined Keck School of Medicine in 2010 as a multiorgan transplant and heptopancreaticobiliary surgeon. He currently serves as director of Quality for the Transplant Institute, chief of service of Hepatobiliary Surgery at LAC+USC and Pancreas Transplant director.

Dhanireddy received his medical degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine and completed general surgery residency at Georgetown University Medical Center, an Abdominal Transplant fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a research fellowship in transplant immunology at National Institutes of Health. He has authored 18 publications in a number of medical journals.

For the past five years, Dhanireddy has been an active member of the Keck Medicine of USC medical staff and USC Care. He currently is chair of the Clinical Practice Committee of USC Care, chair of the Integrated Patient Safety Committee, and co-chair of the Transfusion Committee. He has been instrumental in the creation of the Keck Commitment, a shared statement of professional standards.

— L. Alexis Young