Enrico Benedetti, MD, FACS
Interim G. Stephen Irwin Executive Dean, University of Illinois College of Medicine
Warren H. Cole Chair in Surgery
Email:
About
Enrico Benedetti, MD, FACS, has served as the Interim G. Stephen Irwin Executive Dean of the University of Illinois College of Medicine since January 2026. Dr. Benedetti is Professor and the Warren H. Cole Chair in Surgery. He is a prominent leader in organ transplantation and in the use of robotic-assisted techniques in transplantation. He has to his credit many successful surgical firsts, including the first robotic donor nephrectomy for a living-donor kidney transplant, the first combined living-donor liver and bowel transplant from an adult to an infant, the first robotic combined kidney and pancreas procurement for a living-donor transplant, the largest series of living-donor intestinal transplants in the world, and the first fully robotic kidney transplant.
Dr. Benedetti is a longtime faculty member, having served UIC and the College of Medicine for more than three decades. Upon completing his medical school and surgical residency at the University of Florence (Italy), he moved to Chicago to complete an additional surgical residency at UIC in 1993. He completed a transplant surgery fellowship at the University of Minnesota before returning to UIC and the College of Medicine in 1994, where he rose through faculty ranks as associate professor and was named full professor in 2005. Dr. Benedetti has published nearly 400 peer-reviewed articles and more than 30 book chapters, and is the editor of the seminal book Living Donor Organ Transplantation.