Ochsner Health is a system that delivers health to the people of Louisiana, Mississippi and the Gulf South with a mission to Serve, Heal, Lead, Educate and Innovate.
The Department of Surgery has divisions in Cardiothoracic Surgery, General Surgery, Pediatric Surgery, Plastic Surgery, Surgical Oncology, Transplant Surgery, and Vascular Surgery. The division of General Surgery includes Acute Care/Critical Care, Bariatrics & Foregut, Breast, Endocrine, and Surgical Oncology. There is a separate Department of Colon and Rectal Surgery, through which all General Surgery residents rotate during their first and fifth years.
Dr. Barr’s hepatobiliary practice addresses malignant and benign lesions of the liver, pancreas, and bile duct including: hepatocellular carcinoma, cholangiocarcinoma, pancreas cancer, neuroendocrine tumors, liver metastases from different malignancies as well as lesions such as adenomas and hemangiomas; bile duct injuries; and other associated pathologies as part of a multidisciplinary team that pioneers the latest technologies including robotic operations.
Participating in the promising, ever-evolving new field of transplant oncology, Dr. Barr offers transplant operations to select patients with liver cancers, including colorectal metastases, who would otherwise be ineligible to receive surgery.
Dr. Barr earned a PhD in history from Yale University before graduating from medical school at the University of Virginia in 2015. He completed his seven-year general surgery residency at Duke University in Durham, NC and a fellowship in abdominal organ transplant and advanced hepatopancreaticobiliary surgery at the University of Toronto in Canada. He is board-certified in general surgery, with a certificate in hepatopancreaticobiliary surgery. Dr. Barr holds leadership positions in the American College of Surgeons and American Association for the History of Medicine and is an active member of the American Association of Transplant Surgeons and American Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association. He serves as an associate editor of Annals of Surgery – Open.
Dr. Barr’s grant-funded research focuses on the history of medicine, specifically analyzing the intersection of war and surgery. He has lectured internationally and published widely in the field, with articles appearing in The New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Annals of Surgery, Annals of Internal Medicine, Journal of the American College of Surgeons, among others. His book, Of Life and Limb: Surgical Repair of Arteries in War and Peace, 1880-1960 examines the process of how surgeries are invented, adopted, and metamorphosize through the lens of arterial repair.
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Humberto Bohorquez, MD, practices transplant surgery at Ochsner Health. Dr. Bohorquez has expertise in liver (including living donor), kidney (including living donor) and pancreas transplantation and hepatobiliary surgery, offering comprehensive care for patients with advanced liver disease, liver malignancies, metastatic liver colorectal cancer, advanced renal failure and selected patients with diabetes mellitus. Dr. Bohorquez earned his medical degree in Medicine from Pontifica Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia, in 1989. He is board-certified in Surgery by The American Board of Surgery in 2024. He completed a Transplantation Surgery fellowship at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, in 2002 and the GB Ong visiting fellowship in living donor liver transplantation at University of Hong Kong in 2004. Dr. Bohorquez actively participates in several societies: American Surgeons of Transplant Surgeons, American Society of Transplantation, American College of Surgeons, American Association for the Study of the Liver Disease, International Pancreas and Islet Transplant Association among others to stay updated on medical advancements.
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Dr. Bruce has been a member of the Ochsner faculty since 2008. His clinical interests include liver, kidney, and pancreas transplantation, as well as robotic living donor nephrectomy. After graduating from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1985, he did his general surgery residency at University of Chicago, where he also completed a research fellowship in immunology and a clinical fellowship in liver and kidney transplant surgery. Since 2012, Dr. Bruce has been active in medical informatics at Ochsner, and spends most of his non-clinical time working on Epic implementation for both the transplant program and the Ochsner health system as a whole.
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Dr. Emily Bugeaud completed her undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Michigan. She then went on to complete her residency in General Surgery at the University of Chicago. During her clinical training, she simultaneously earned her doctorate in immunology studying the role of bacterial infections in transplantation tolerance. Dr. Bugeaud then went on to continue her clinical training in Abdominal Organ Transplantation, completing her fellowship at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Bugeaud joined the Ochsner Multi-Organ Transplant Institute in August 2014 with an interest in liver, kidney and pancreas transplant as well as organ donation, including living donation.
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Dr. Ngo earned her bachelor degrees in neuroscience, biology, and Chinese at Duke University. Following this, she earned both her Master in Pharmacology and medical degree from Tulane School of Medicine. Dr. Ngo completed her general surgery residency at Tulane Medical Center where she earned Intern of the Year award and the esteemed “Esprit de corps” award given to the resident that best embodied the department’s core values.
She is board-certified in general surgery by the American Board of Surgery. She completed an abdominal transplant surgery fellowship at the Ochsner Multi-Organ Transplant Institute. During her fellowship, she garnered exceptional exposure with deceased and living donor transplantations as well as technological advances such as minimally invasive surgery, normothermic regional perfusion and hypothermic/normothermic machine perfusion.
She has experience with multi-visceral transplantation and complex cases such as vascular reconstruction, biliary reconstruction or re-do transplantations. Dr. Ngo actively participates in the American College of Surgeons, American Society of Transplant Surgeons, Association of Women Surgeons and the Society of Asian Academic Surgeons.
Dr. Ngo is a first-generation Asian American who is fluent in Vietnamese and Chinese. As a native of the Gulf Coast (Biloxi, Mississippi), Dr. Ngo is committed to serving the local area with hopes of expanding access to transplantation to underserved communities. She has been practicing at Ochsner since 2023, when she first joined as a surgical fellow.
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Dr. Sawyer earned his medical degree and masters in genomic medicine from University of Miami in Miami, in 2018. He completed his internship and residency in general surgery at the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans, finishing in 2023. He was board-certified by the American Board of Surgery in 2023. He completed a pediatric and adult abdominal transplant surgery and hepato-pancreato-biliary surgery fellowship at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and the University of Southern California in 2025. Dr. Sawyer actively participates in American Society of Transplant Surgeons and the American College of Surgeons.
Prior to becoming a physician, he studied economics and served as a volunteer firefighter at Davidson College in North Carolina. He then worked for five years in international journalism at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in Washington, D.C., focusing on global health. He grew up in Tallahassee, Florida.
Dr. Sawyer has been practicing at Ochsner since 2025. Outside of medicine, he enjoys sailing, backpacking, woodworking and reading.
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John Seal MD, practices abdominal organ transplantation and liver surgery at Ochsner Health. Dr. Seal has expertise in liver, kidney and pancreas transplantation and liver surgery. He has special skill and expertise in living donor liver transplantation, pediatric liver transplantation and robotic surgery. He is the surgical director of the Living Donor Liver Transplant Program and surgical co-director of the Pediatric Liver Transplant Program at Ochsner. He is also a leader in liver transplant for cancers including HCC, bile duct and colorectal cancers.
Dr. Seal completed medical school and General Surgery residency at the University of Chicago in 2012 and went on to complete a fellowship in Abdominal Transplantation and Hepatobiliary Surgery at the University of Toronto in 2014. He is certified and experienced in advanced robotic surgery, living donor liver transplantation and pediatric liver transplantation. Dr. Seal actively participates in multiple professional societies for organ transplantation, liver disease and pediatric surgery to stay updated on medical advancements.
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Dennis Sonnier, MD, is an abdominal transplant surgeon at Ochsner Health in New Orleans. He performs liver transplants, living donor liver transplants, kidney transplants, living donor kidney transplants, robotic kidney transplants and pancreas transplants. He also performs organ recovery operations.
Dr. Sonnier has an interest in minimally invasive surgery, including robotic kidney transplant and donor nephrectomy. He also has a special clinical interest in surgical education and serves as director of the surgical clerkship for University of Queensland-Ochsner Clinical School medical students. Dr. Sonnier is the surgical director of kidney transplant at the Ochsner Transplant Institute in New Orleans.
A native of South Louisiana, Dr. Sonnier earned his medical degree in 2007 from Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans. He completed his internship and residency at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Ohio and a fellowship in abdominal transplant surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Sonnier is board-certified by the American Board of Surgery and has been on staff at Ochsner since 2016.
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