William Fisher, M.D., FACS, is an internationally known leader in pancreatic surgery. He is a professor and the vice chair for Clinical Affairs for the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery; the George L. Jordan, M.D., Chair in General Surgery; and the director of the Elkins Pancreas Center at Baylor College of Medicine. Over the last 25 years, he has built one of the largest clinical programs for the treatment of pancreatic disease in southeast Texas with outstanding clinical outcomes. Dr. Fisher leveraged this large clinical volume to create a tissue resource annotated by a sophisticated prospective outcomes database. His clinical research program has been highlighted by his role as principal investigator of two multicenter randomized clinical trials that generated a practice-changing impact on the use of drains during pancreatectomy. In addition, his basic science lab has contributed new knowledge regarding the influence of gastrointestinal hormones on pancreatic cancer growth, the relationship between diabetes and pancreatic cancer, the genomics of pancreatic cancer, and novel therapeutic strategies.
Dr. Fisher participated in several large, collaborative gene-sequencing studies that led to novel discoveries published in Nature regarding the genetics of pancreatic cancer and other pancreatic tumors. He served for 10 years as principal investigator for the National Institutes of Health Consortium to Study Chronic Pancreatitis, Diabetes and Pancreatic Cancer.
Dr. Fisher has assumed numerous leadership roles within the hospital and at Baylor College of Medicine, leading to significant advancement in clinical productivity, quality and operational
