A graduate of College of the Holy Cross and the Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Doherty completed residency training at UCSF, including fellowship at the National Cancer Institute.  He joined Washington University School of Medicine in 1993, and became Professor of Surgery in 2001.  In 2002 he moved to the University of Michigan as the Norman Thompson Professor of Surgery.  From 2012 to 2016, Dr. Doherty was the Utley Professor and Chair of Surgery at Boston University and Surgeon-in-Chief at Boston Medical Center before becoming the Moseley Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School; Surgeon-in-Chief at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; and Crowley Family Distinguished Chair, Department of Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Dr. Doherty was trained in surgical oncology, and has focused mainly on surgical diseases of the thyroid, parathyroid, endocrine pancreas and adrenal glands as well as management of Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia syndromes. His bibliography includes over 300 peer-reviewed articles, reviews and book chapters, and several edited books.  

He currently serves as Vice President of the Society of Surgical Chairs, Treasurer of the International Society of Surgery, Reviews Editor of JAMA Surgery, and Editor-in-Chief of AccessSurgery.  He is Past-President of the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons and the International Association of Endocrine Surgeons.