Arora elected vice chair of ACS Committee on Diversity Issues

Dr. Tania K. Arora, a surgical oncologist in the Department of Surgery at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, has been elected to serve as vice chair of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Diversity Issues.

The committee studies the educational and professional needs of underrepresented surgeons and surgical trainees and works to eliminate health disparities. The ACS has more than 82,000 members, including more than 6,600 fellows in other countries, making it the largest organization of surgeons in the world.

Arora, who has been a fellow of the ACS since 2016, joined the MCG faculty in 2019 and serves as director of the general surgery residency program. She also chairs the Association for Surgical Education’s Committee on Citizenship and Global Responsibility, Association of Program Directors in Surgery’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee and the Association of Academic Surgeons Committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.  She is a member of the Association of Women Surgeon’s Subcommittee on Social Media and the Association of Surgical Education’s Podcast Committee.

Last year, she also chaired the MCG Graduate Medical Education Subcommittee on Diversity, Equality, Inclusion and Health Disparities, the Department of Surgery’s Program Evaluation Committee and completed her term on the Society of Surgical Oncology’s Membership Committee.

Arora, a native of London, received her medical degree in 2004 from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine in Richmond. She completed two years of research, under a T32 grant from the NIH, examining how the amino acid L-arginine improved outcomes of severe hemorrhagic shock in an animal model, in 2008; a surgery residency in 2011; and a fellowship in complex general surgical oncology in 2013, all at VCU School of Medicine.