• Medical Campus

About Us

The Department of Surgery is committed to providing expert, innovative, and compassionate health care — continuing our department’s proud 150-year tradition by training the next generation of surgeon leaders.

"Michigan Surgery has a strong track record of excellence, and I welcome the opportunity to build on this legacy. To provide timely, high quality care to our patients, we must embrace the challenges posed by our evolving health care environment. This means continuing to strategically expand our clinical programs; promoting diverse areas of discovery; training future leaders; and fostering an inclusive culture that brings forth the very best in our talented faculty, trainee and staff."

Dr. Justin B. Dimick, Department of Surgery Chair

Our Mission

The U-M Department of Surgery will create a positive, substantive impact on human health, through collaboration among clinicians, scientists, medical and business professionals to achieve:

  • Highly effective, compassionate patient care
  • Innovative science and meaningful discovery
  • Superior, engaging education

Our Vision

The U-M Department of Surgery will be the best such academic group in the world, dedicated to:

  • Improving patients’ chances of healthy survival while bettering the quality of their care
  • Discovering and developing insights, innovations and tools needed to better prevent and treat disease
  • Educating next generations of surgeons and researchers

Our Values

The people of the U-M Department of Surgery are committed to advancing medicine and serving humanity through living and teaching our core values of:

  • Respect and compassion
  • Collaboration
  • Innovation
  • Excellence

The Michigan Promise

"I would like people to say that the Michigan Promise has had a positive impact on surgery, through our science, through developing new ways to care for patients, but also through improving culture and leadership in surgery and changing perspectives on what it means to be a surgical leader."  

Dr. Justin B. Dimick, Department of Surgery Chair

Land Acknowledgement

The department of surgery acknowledges that Michigan Medicine resides on the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg, which includes the Three Fires People of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Bodewadami Nations, as well as Meskwahkiasahina (Fox), Peoria, and Wyandot Nations. These lands were ceded under Article 1 of the Treaty of Detroit in 1807. We must further acknowledge that the indigenous people’s cession of these lands occurred under coercive treaties obtained in unconscionable ways during the colonization and expansion of the United States.

The University of Michigan’s original endowment (then known as the College at Detroit) was significantly funded through the sale of land granted under Article 16 of the 1817 Treaty of the Foot of the Rapids. This grant was made by Anishinaabeg, so that their children could be educated.

As we continue to live, work, and learn on these lands, we must recognize they remain the homeland of many indigenous people. Through these words of acknowledgment, we seek to reaffirm the vital contributions of indigenous people in our institutional history and respect their contemporary and ancestral ties to this land.

Learn More

The Michigan Promise (internal link)
Our Clinical Advantage (internal link)
Surgery Leadership (internal link)
Research & Innovation (internal link)
Surgical Specialties (internal link)
Training & Education (internal link)