Dr. Erik Dutson received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1990 from The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA where he was on the Dean's List. He attended medical school at Eastern Virginia Medical School, receiving his M.D. degree in 1995. After completing medical school, he remained in Norfolk, VA to complete his general-surgery-residency training, which he completed with honors in 2000 under Dr. L.D. Britt. Seeking to further his excellent clinical experience, he worked for one year as a Locum Tenens surgeon, which gave him the opportunity to participate in a variety of practices in different hospitals all over the country while helping out communities in dire need of a well-trained general surgeon. An increasing interest in advancing surgical technologies guided Dr. Dutson to Strasbourg, France, where he worked for two years as a clinical and research fellow at the European Institute for Telesurgery at the University of Louis Pasteur. During this time, he learned a wide variety of advanced minimally invasive surgical techniques from a conglomeration of world-renowned experts. He participated in robotic-surgical investigations, and helped develop and validate virtual- and augmented-reality applications for surgery. As part of this experience, he participated in the training of approximately 8,000 surgeons from all over the world in advanced laparoscopic procedures, and worked on a day-to-day basis with the team that performed the first-ever transatlantic telerobotic long-distance surgical procedure.



Upon returning to the United States, he joined the newly formed Minimally Invasive Section of UCLA's Department of Surgery in September 2003. He presently serves as the UCLA Minimally Invasive Surgery Fellowship Director, a MIS Fellowship Council accredited program, and as Co-Director of UCLA’s Center for Advanced Surgical and Interventional Technology (CASIT), a multidisciplinary laboratory with participation by the UCLA Schools of Medicine, Engineering, Computer Science, and Applied Mathematics. He is a regular panel reviewer for NASA’s National Space Biomedical Research Institute.



Dr. Dutson is board certified in surgery and an active member in the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES), the American College of Surgeons (ACS), the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons (SLS), the Minimally Invasive Robotic Association (MIRA) and the American Society of Bariatric Surgery (ASBS). He has authored multiple scientific papers that have been published in peer-reviewed surgical and engineering journals. He has also spoken at numerous local, national and international meetings, as well as having helped to develop CME accreditation for web-based surgical education and worked as a web-based editor and author of surgical texts. He has been a visiting professor at both national and international venues, where he has also served as surgical proctor performing demonstrative advanced laparoscopic procedures. His clinical interests include laparoscopic and robotic bariatric surgery; laparoscopic gastric, upper and lower intestinal surgery; minimally invasive hiatal, paraesophageal, inguinal, ventral and incisional herniorrhapy; laparoscopic adrenalectomy and splenectomy; laparoscopic liver surgery and flexible endoscopy.