Kenneth J. Woodside, MD

Kenneth J. Woodside, MD, is a transplant surgeon and health services researcher, with his first job in the field at the age of 19.  Dr. Woodside received undergraduate, graduate, and medical degrees from the University of Michigan, also completing the Howard Hughes Medical Institute – National Institutes of Health Research Scholars Program at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.  He completed general surgery residency and transplant immunology research postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) in 2006 and a Master of Science in Clinical Research Design and Statistical Analysis in 2015.  He completed a two-year fellowship in transplant surgery at the University of Michigan in 2009.  

Following fellowship, he was faculty at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals of Cleveland.  In 2015, he was appointed an Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Michigan in the Section of Transplant Surgery, where he also served as co-director of the Transplant Center Research Office.  In Spring, 2022, he taught biology and human anatomy at Ann Arbor Academy, a high school for students with learning differences and disabilities.  He founded both Academia Invisus LLC and KW Global Transplantation Consulting PLLC in 2022.  He is currrently the Surgical Director of Sharing Hope of South Carolina.  

Dr. Woodside has a long-standing interest in global health.  He was part of the team that established Ethiopia’s first kidney transplant center at St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College in Addis Ababa and is currently doing the same in Rwanda at King Faisal Hospital in Kigali.  He has also been visiting faculty at Hospital do Rim in São Paolo, Brazil.  He has been a member of the (international) Transplantation Society since 2010 and is a long-standing member of its Membership Committee.  He is also a member of the International Pancreas and Islet Cell Transplant Association, serving on the Membership Committee, the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, serving as the current vice chair of the International Relations Committee, and the American Transplantation Society, serving on the Executive Council of the Kidney & Pancreas Community of Practice and the chair of the Obesity Workgroup.  He has been elected a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the American Society of Transplantation, and the American Society of Nephrology.

Also, Dr. Woodside has been an active educator, having taught and mentored numerous high school students, undergraduates, graduate and medical students, residents, and fellows.  He has received two teaching awards. 

Dr. Woodside is an associate editor of the journals Transplantation and Clinical Transplantation, as well as a section editor of Current Transplantation Reports.  He has published over 160 articles in professional journals and book chapters, as well as book reviews, photographs, educational videos, and essays.  Additionally, he has given numerous national and international presentations.  His research interests focus on kidney transplant outcomes and vascular access maturation.  From 2015 to 2019, he was an investigator with the federally funded United States Renal Data System (USRDS), serving as the lead surgeon for the transplant and vascular access groups.  Additionally, he is the chair of the Medical Advisory Board of Nephrodite, Inc, a company making an implantable dialysis device.

Dr. Woodside’s clinical interests focus on kidney and pancreas transplantation, immunosuppression management, organ donation and recovery, and open and endovascular dialysis access surgery.  

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