61686-Bilimoria, Karl
Faculty

Karl Y. Bilimoria, MD, MS

Chair, Department of Surgery

Email karlb@iu.edu
Address
545 Barnhill Dr.
DEPT OF SURGERY, EH 203

Indianapolis, IN 46202
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Bio

Dr. Bilimoria is a surgical oncologist, researcher, and physician executive at Indiana University. He is the Chair of the Department of Surgery and the Jay L. Grosfeld Professor of Surgery (tenured). He is also the Vice President for Surgical Quality for the Indiana University Health system. His clinical practice is focused on melanoma, sarcoma and gastrointestinal stromal tumors. He is a native Hoosier and graduate of the Indiana University School of Medicine.

Dr. Bilimoria is a health services, quality improvement, health policy and medical education researcher. He is the founding Executive Director of the Surgical Outcomes and Quality Improvement Center (SOQIC) at Indiana University, a nationally recognized research team focused on national, regional, and local quality improvement research and implementation, as well as surgical education. SOQIC was recently located to Indiana University from Northwestern.

Dr. Bilimoria also founded the 56-hospital Illinois Surgical Quality Improvement Collaborative (ISQIC), which is now being merged with Indiana hospitals to become the Iliana Surgical Quality Improvement Collaborative. He also developed a novel platform for innovative surgical education trials as the Principal Investigator of the 151-hospital FIRST Trial and the co-PI of the subsequent 215-hospital SECOND Trial. The SECOND Trial and this surgical education trials platform was also recently relocated to Indiana University. 

Dr. Bilimoria is a Faculty Scholar at the American College of Surgeons. He has published more than 450 scientific articles, including numerous publications in JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine (h-index=71). Dr. Bilimoria’s research is funded by the NIH, AHRQ, and numerous others totaling >$35M.

He is past President of the Association for Academic Surgery and the Surgical Outcomes Club, and he has been a part of the leadership for several other national organizations in surgery and oncology. Dr. Bilimoria has mentored more than 50 surgical research fellows and junior faculty. He was awarded Mentor of the Year by Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine in 2020 and has been listed by Becker’s as one of the “Top 50 Experts Leading the Field of Patient Safety” in the U.S.  

Dr. Bilimoria previously had a variety of executive leadership roles for the Northwestern Medicine 11-hospital health system in Chicago, particularly focusing on quality and innovation. Dr. Bilimoria lives in Indianapolis with his amazing wife and three children. 

Titles & Appointments

  • Chair, Department of Surgery
  • Jay L. Grosfeld Professor of Surgery
  • Vice President of Surgery Quality, IU Health
  • Education
    2008 MS Northwestern University
    2003 MD Indiana University
    1998 BA Northwestern University
  • Research
    Dr. Bilimoria's research interests focus on a variety of topics related to improving healthcare quality and delivery by (1) developing better ways to provide hospitals with comparative data, (2) providing hospitals with the tools to use their data to undertake internal hospital quality improvement efforts, (3) providing patients with better comparative data through public reporting, which can assist them in selecting the best hospitals and physicians for their care, and (4) performing evaluations of policies that impact healthcare quality.

    Additionally, Dr. Bilimoria has an interest in large-scale, national surgical education trials seeking to improve residency training and the resident learning environment. He also has a focus on mentoring research residents and junior faculty.  Dr. Bilimoria has mentored more than 50 mentees, many of whom have won awards for their research, earned independent funding, published first-author papers in major journals such as JAMA and NEJM, and been recruited back to the SOQIC team.
  • Professional Organizations
    Academy of Master Surgeon Educators
    Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society
    American College of Healthcare Executives
    American College of Surgeons
    American Society for Clinical Investigation
    American Surgical Association
    Association for Academic Surgery
    Commission on Cancer
    Editorial Board Member, Annals of Surgery
    Editorial Board Member, Annals of Surgical Oncology
    Editorial Board Member, Joint Commission Journal of Quality and Safety
    Society of Asian Academic Surgeons
    Society of Black Academic Surgeons
    Society of University Surgeons
  • Clinical Interests
    - Melanoma 
    - Sarcoma
    - Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors

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