Gagan Mathur

Biography

Gagan Mathur, MD, MBA, CPE, is a transfusion medicine physician executive whose work centers on a simple question: how do we make blood safer, use it more wisely, and treat patients' own blood health as a clinical priority? He is Medical Director of Transfusion Medicine & Blood Banking at UCI Health, Associate Professor of Clinical Pathology at the UC Irvine School of Medicine, Associate Program Director of the Pathology Residency Program, and CLIA Director of the UCI Health Laguna Hills Laboratory.

Dr. Mathur has led transfusion services at three health systems. Before joining UCI in 2022, he was Medical Director of Transfusion Medicine and FACT Apheresis Director at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, and System Medical Director of Transfusion Medicine at Saint Luke's Health System in Kansas City, where he directed a program spanning eight hospitals. At UCI Health, he oversees blood bank operations, patient blood management and blood utilization initiatives, and CAP and AABB accreditation for the transfusion service.

His research focuses on blood health and patient blood management, including practical, no-added-cost approaches to iron deficiency screening using reticulocyte hemoglobin and low hemoglobin density. He also studies transfusion safety, from informed consent in the electronic health record era to RBC alloantibody surveillance and donor safety, and emerging areas such as cell-free DNA, oxygen therapeutics, normothermic machine perfusion, and acute normovolemic hemodilution. He has published more than 30 peer-reviewed articles in journals including Transfusion, Vox Sanguinis, Journal of Clinical Apheresis, Anesthesia & Analgesia, PLOS ONE, and American Journal of Clinical Pathology, and his commentary on cell-free DNA has been featured by The Pathologist, Today's Clinical Lab, and the CAP PATH News Network.

Nationally, Dr. Mathur chairs the AABB Perioperative Accreditation Committee and is an invited co-author of the AABB Standards for Perioperative Autologous Blood Collection and Administration. He serves as Treasurer and Executive Committee member of the Society for the Advancement of Patient Blood Management (SABM), where he chairs the Finance Committee, and represents SABM on the American Society of Anesthesiologists Patient Blood Management Guideline Taskforce. He is an elected California Delegate to the College of American Pathologists House of Delegates and a CAP inspection team leader. He is also active in health policy, advocating to modernize California's blood and transfusion regulations, including the Paul Gann Act.

Teaching is central to his work. As Associate Program Director and Chair of the Clinical Competency Committee, he redesigned the residency journal club around critical appraisal, built a longitudinal quality improvement curriculum, and organized a communication skills workshop for pathology and clinical laboratory science trainees. He mentors physicians, trainees, and laboratory professionals through SABM, CAP, and AABB programs.

Dr. Mathur completed his clinical pathology residency and transfusion medicine fellowship at the University of Iowa, where he also earned his MBA. He is board certified by the American Board of Pathology in Clinical Pathology and Transfusion Medicine/Blood Banking.

Education

• MBBS in Medicine and Surgery, Dr. S. N. Medical College, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India, 2010
• MBA in Business Administration, University of Iowa Tippie School of Management, 2015
• Residency in Clinical Pathology, University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, 2015
• Fellowship in Transfusion Medicine/Blood Banking, University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, 2016

Distinctions

• Certified Physician Executive (CPE), American Association for Physician Leadership (AAPL), 2020
• Outstanding Reviewer, Transfusion and Apheresis Science, 2018
• Physician's Recognition Award with Commendation, American Medical Association (AMA), 2018
• Paul E. Strandjord Young Investigator Award, Academy of Clinical Laboratory Physicians and Scientists (ACLPS), 2016
• Diplomate, American Board of Pathology, Transfusion Medicine/Blood Banking, 2016
• Diplomate, American Board of Pathology, Clinical Pathology, 2015