Former Navy Flight Surgeon Receives Creighton University Alumni Merit Award

The Creighton University School of Medicine will honor Thomas R. Russell, M.D., with the Alumni Merit Award on September16, at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Omaha.

After Dr. Russell earned his medical degree from Creighton University in 1966, he was in the surgical residency program at the University of California, San Francisco, until 1975. During this time he also served as a U.S. Navy Flight Surgeon as Lieutenant Commander in Vietnam.

Since 2000, Dr. Russell has served as executive director for the American College of Surgeons, the largest organization of surgeons in the world. He has also served as chairman of the Department of Surgery at California Pacific Medical Center and clinical professor of surgery at the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Russell specializes in colon and rectal surgery and has done research on gastrointestinal hormones physiology. He has received several awards for excellence in teaching from the University of California, San Francisco and the Premier Physician Award from the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation. He has been a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Society and the Alpha Sigma Nu National Jesuit Society since 1966.