David B. Stewart, MD, FACS, FASCRS

Scott R. Steele MD, MBA, FACS, FASCRS

Dr. David B. Stewart is the Section Chief of Colorectal Surgery and Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ. He received his undergraduate degree at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, majoring in Biology. Following this, he received his medical school degree at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX, and subsequently performed his General Surgery residency at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital in California. He went on to complete both his Colon and Rectal Surgery research and clinical fellowships at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, MO. David returned east to The Pennsylvania State University Milton S. Hershey Medical Center as a staff Colorectal Surgeon from 2008 to 2017, until his current leadership position in Arizona. His practice spans a wide variety of colorectal surgery with specific interests in recurrent rectal cancer and inflammatory bowel disease.

David is a busy clinician and academic surgeon, as well as a world-renown and NIH (National Institute of Health)-funded researcher. His research interests include outcomes research, quality improvement, and Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI). Specifically, his research on CDI has a translational focus, with the goal of improving the care of CDI patients, and focuses on two key and related areas regarding CDI and the gut microbiome. His team is the first to have described the presence of a fungal-associated bacteriome in CDI, where pathogenic fungi present in CDI directly contribute to the bacterial dysbiosis which is very important for CDI persistence and recurrence rates. This investigation includes cutting edge bioinformatics to study how antifungal therapies may improve the antibacterial treatment of CDI.

He has over 100 peer-reviewed and invited publications, reviews for many prestigious peer-reviewed journals, serves several editorial boards, including Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery and Diseases of the Colon and Rectum, and is an active participant in multiple surgical societies.

Away from medicine, he enjoys jogging, lifting weights, and spending time with his wife Christy and children Eve, David, Lily, and Chloe. David is one of the brightest and most driven academic surgeons I know, only to be bested by his humor and subtle sarcastic charm. On behalf of the readers and staff of Clinics of Colon and Rectal Surgery, I sincerely thank Dr. Stewart for serving as a Guest Editor and for providing us with a superb issue “Clostridioides difficile Infection.”