Dr. John Morton is Chief of Bariatric and Minimally Invasive Surgery, Clinic Chief for the Bariatric and Metabolic Inter-Disciplinary Clinic, and heads the Bariatric and Minimally Invasive Surgery Fellowship. Dr. Morton received BS, MPH, and MD Degrees from Tulane University and a Masters in Health Administration from University of Washington. He was the first surgical resident to receive a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar Fellowship in the program’s history at University of Washington and also completed an advanced laparoscopic fellowship at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He served on Capitol Hill as Senator Bill Frist’s Health Policy Intern. He is a Diplomate of both the American Board of Surgery and American Board of Obesity Medicine and certified in Medical Quality by the American College of Medical Quality.
He has published over 140 articles and 18 book chapters with over 300 national and international presentations. His research has focused on quality improvement and bariatric surgery. He led 5 site FDA Pivotal Trials and has received funding from NIH and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. He serves as editor of four books and on 11 editorial boards. His research efforts have been recognized by 26 research awards from 5 different surgical societies including the Society for Advanced Gastrointestinal Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES) Golden Laparoscope Award as 2008 Young Investigator of the Year. As a teacher, Dr. Morton has received five teaching awards at Stanford University in 8 years including the 2008 Arthur Bloomfield Clinical Teacher of the Year and 2011 Henry J. Kaiser Teaching Award.
As Director of Surgical Quality at Stanford University Medical Center from 2007-2013, Dr. Morton led efforts to improve the Department of Surgery’s University Health Consortium’s annual ranking from 24/98 to 1/98 and their Annual NSQIP mortality ranking from Average to Exemplary. He has been an invited speaker on surgical quality by the American College of Surgeons, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, National Patient Safety Foundation, and American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery and served on the National Quality Forum’s Surgical and GI/GU Steering Committees. Currently, he is the national Chair of the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program (MBSAQIP), a collaboration for 800 hospitals between the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery and the American College of Surgeons. From 2014-16, the Stanford Bariatric Surgery program was noted to be Exemplary in five different categories by MBSAQIP.
From 2014-5, he served as elected President of the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery composed of over 4000 members from 52 countries. With over 2000 bariatric surgeries performed, he has been recognized as a bariatric surgery leader by Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, RAND, American College of Surgeons, Who’s Who and America’s Top Surgeons. His clinical skills have resulted in being named Castle Connolly’s Physician of the Year for Clinical Excellence in 2012. Dr. Morton also founded the first obesity related Political Action Committee, Obesity PAC on behalf of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery and Chair of the National Obesity Collaborative Care Summit for 35 Different Medical Societies. He was selected as Chair for Obesity Week 2018, which is the largest worldwide meeting devoted to obesity. Dr. Morton has been featured on the Today Show, Good Morning America, NY Times, National Public Radio, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, BBC, Newsweek, Time, Medscape, Washington Post, LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, International Herald Tribune, Reuters, United Press International, Wall Street Journal, and Associated Press.
