Karen Woo, MD, PhD

Dr. Woo is a Professor of Surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She is a busy vascular surgeon and sees patients in the vascular surgery clinic, the wound care and limb salvage clinic and hyperbaric medicine. She is a recognized expert in dialysis vascular access. She and her team perform complex vascular access operations and are dedicated to the care of patients with end stage kidney disease.  

In addition to her clinical work, Dr. Woo is the Principal Investigator of a National Institutes of Health funded research laboratory. Dr. Woo has authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles and has been an invited speaker at a variety of national and international scientific meetings. Her scientific research focuses on improving outcomes of dialysis vascular access operations and optimizing the patient experience of healthcare. To do so, she collaborates with numerous other researchers across the UCLA campus including in the fields of public health, biostatistics and medical informatics.

Dr. Woo is the Associate Director of the Vascular Low Frequency Disease Consortium, a novel collaborative effort among investigators from institutions across the US and the world to study management and outcomes of uncommon vascular conditions.  Dr. Woo is an active member of the American College of Surgeons, the Society for Vascular Surgery, the Society for Clinical Vascular Surgery, the Society for University Surgeons and a number other professional organizations. She has served in numerous local, regional and national leadership positions within the surgery community including the Board of Directors for the Surgical Outcomes Club, Board of Directors for the Southern California American College of Surgeons and president of the Southern California Vascular Surgical Society.