David A. Axelrod, MD, MBA

Dr. Axelrod is currently Professor of Surgery and Director of the Kidney, Pancreas, and Living Donor transplant programs at University of Iowa.   Prior to joining Iowa, Dr. David Axelrod served as the Surgical Director of Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation and Section Chief of Solid Organ Transplantation at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center from 2005-16.  In addition, he was a member of the clinical staff at Massachusetts General Hospital and on the faculty of Lahey Clinic in Burlington Massachusetts (2017-18).  His clinical interests include the surgical management of end-stage kidney and liver disease including treatment of hepatic malignancy and portal hypertension, surgical management of type I diabetes mellitus, and chronic pancreatitis.  In addition, he has expertise in minimally invasive hepatic surgery including liver resection and radio-frequency ablation.

His research interests including surgical outcomes analysis including economic evaluation, Markov modeling, and statistical process control techniques. Previous investigations have examined the economic impact of MELD on liver transplantation, quality outcome monitoring in organ transplantation, steroid free immunosuppression in kidney and pancreas transplants, and geographic disparities in access to organ transplant.  

Dr. Axelrod attended Harvard College prior to completing an MD and MBA at Duke University.  He trained in general surgery and surgical critical care at the University of Michigan, health services research and economic analysis in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, and in multi-organ transplantation during his fellowship at Northwestern University.  

Dr. Axelrod has been active at the United Network for Organ Sharing serving pancreas transplant committee chairman, associate counselor for Region 1, and a member of the Policy Oversight Committee.  He was elected to the Board of Directors in 2016. He is also active in the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, serving as chairman of the Business Practice Committee and the Standards Committee.  He developed and led the ASTS Leadership Development Program at Kellogg School of Business, which is now in its 8^thyear.  

Dr. Axelrod is also a founding partner in XynManagment (XM).  XM is a technology and services company serving transplant centers through the development of cloud based quality of care monitoring software and outsource patient management solutions.  XM now provides services for more than 20 leading transplant programs and is launching a new product this spring to provide comprehensive QAPI documentation, analysis, and tracking.