Rooted in Tennessee: Pediatric Surgeon Brings a Lifetime of Commitment to His Chattanooga Community

For S. Dave Bhattacharya, MD, medicine was never a distant goal. It was a part of his everyday life.

Just before he was born, his father, Syamal Bhattacharya, joined the University of Tennessee Health Sciences in 1979, spending decades as a researcher in the Departments of Neurology and Surgery, and he's still a faculty member in the Division of Cardiovascular Diseases. Growing up, Dr. Dave Bhattacharya spent time around the physicians and surgeons who helped build UT Health Sciences' reputation across Tennessee.

That connection became personal when at 18, a Memphis burn surgeon and UT Health Sciences College of Medicine graduate, Bill Hickerson, MD, invited him to work as a tech in the burn operating room.

"He said, 'What are you doing working in this restaurant? You should come see what surgery is like,'" Dr. Bhattacharya recalls. "Almost 30 years later, I still have breakfast with him every now and then."

It was a small moment with significant impact. Dr. Bhattacharya stepped into the world of burn surgery and never really left the operating room. He loved it from the first day - the combination of acute decision-making, technical skill, and the chance to genuinely change the course of someone's life. Burn surgery appealed to him partly because its surgeons cared for both adults and children, but it was the pediatric patients who captured something in him that never quite let go.

That pull toward young patients would eventually lead him to his life's work.

A Calling to Serve

After completing medical school at the UT Health Sciences College of Medicine, Dr. Bhattacharya pursued his general and thoracic surgery residency at Duke University, then returned to Tennessee for fellowship training in pediatric surgery at Vanderbilt University. When it was time to choose where to build his career, he looked across the Southeast, but Chattanooga offered something that felt right on multiple levels.

"The opportunity here is really unique," he says. "We take care of not just a metropolitan community but also a rural one across Southern Appalachia, Western North Carolina, North Alabama. My partners and I have a really large area to care for." Dr. Bhattacharya practices at Erlanger Health, UT Health Sciences' hospital partner in Chattanooga.

Being able to serve patients across this region matters to him. Dr. Bhattacharya had attended Tennessee Governor's School for the Sciences and Engineering at UT Knoxville as a high-school student. He had trained at a state institution on a tuition the state of Tennessee helped underwrite. That investment wasn't lost on him.

"I always felt that the state invested in me. And when you've benefited greatly from a state like ours, I find it's really important to give back."

Ask Dr. Bhattacharya what he loves most about his job, and he doesn't hesitate.

Dr. Bhattacharya says teaching and working with students is the best part of his job. Along with training the next generation of physicians, teaching helps propel excellence in medicine.

"The best part of my job is working with residents, fellows, and medical and PA students," he says. "Every day is unique and like the first day all over again when you have a new learner in the room with you."

For Dr. Bhattacharya, that energy always carries weight. Even on days when the surgical cases are straightforward, the presence of a student resets the room.

"While the work can be routine for me, it's brand new for them," he says. "And that makes every single day feel like day one."

Caring for Children Across the State

At the College of Medicine - Chattanooga, Dr. Bhattacharya serves as the associate program director for the general surgery residency, as well as the Surgery Department Chief of Research, overseeing a built-in dedicated research year and convening weekly meetings with residents to work through projects and manuscripts. Publishing in their area of surgical interest is how residents position themselves for competitive fellowships, and the program has a strong track record of matching residents into competitive programs in the subspecialties they choose, from plastics surgery to cardiothoracic and endocrine surgery.

What makes that possible, Dr. Bhattacharya says, is that pediatric surgery naturally spans nearly every corner of surgery.

"Pediatric surgeons have a scope of surgical practice that encompasses pretty much all of it," he says. "So we can really lean into whatever a resident is particularly interested in and help them build their future in the direction they want to go."

He also models what the job looks like in full, inviting residents and students to join him at community meetings, advocacy events, and other gatherings where public health decisions get shaped. He wants them to understand the skills they're building in training belong in the world outside the hospital too.

Part of what makes the Chattanooga model distinct is continuity of care. Rather than rotating through different surgeons of the day, families at Erlanger work with the same pediatric surgeon from the first procedure through the last. For Dr. Bhattacharya, that continuity is foundational to the trust he builds with families.

"If your child is born on the day I'm on call, I'm your surgeon until your child no longer needs me," he says.

As a pediatric surgeon and the medical director for pediatric trauma at Erlanger, Dr. Bhattacharya operates on some of the youngest and most vulnerable patients across the region. The cases stay with him.

"I tell families that this is a marathon. We're going to know each other for a long time. But I'm going to walk with you down this road."

Dr. Dave Bhattacharya

He points to a more recent patient, Baby Silas - a premature infant weighing less than 900 grams, roughly the size of a 20-ounce bottle - who was born with a dangerous connection between his trachea and esophagus. Without surgery, he could not survive. Dr. Bhattacharya performed the initial procedure to separate the two structures, then waited weeks before reconstructing the esophagus once Silas had grown strong enough to tolerate it.

"Some of these children require several operations," he says. "But the goal is not today or tomorrow. The goal is that your kid goes to prom. Your kid has a healthy and fulfilling lifetime."

That long horizon sets up how he approaches every family, especially those navigating months or years of care.

"I tell families that this is a marathon," he says. "We're going to know each other for a long time. But I'm going to walk with you down this road."

He still calls Silas' family to check in and is thrilled with the milestones. "Silas has healed wonderfully and is doing well. Every monthly update is a good report."

A Legacy of Medicine

Dr. Bhattacharya's connection to the UT Health Sciences College of Medicine doesn't begin and end with him. It runs through his family.

His wife, Jill Tichy, MD, is also a UT Health Sciences College of Medicine graduate, a medical oncologist specializing in breast cancer who practices in Chattanooga. The two are Memphis natives and high-school sweethearts who completed their medical degrees together in 2007 and have built their careers in Tennessee. His brother is likewise a UT Health Sciences College of Medicine alumnus, an OB-GYN practicing in Rockford, Illinois.

"We have a lot of family connection to UT Health Sciences," Dr. Bhattacharya says. "We're Tennesseans. That's who we are."

This identity affects the way he engages with the institution beyond his clinical role. He sits on the Dean's Faculty Advisory Committee and the Faculty Senate, bringing a regional voice to conversations that span the entire UT System. He thinks often about what UT's presence means in Chattanooga not just for physicians who work there but also for residents of the city, who may not realize how much of their medical care traces back to a training pipeline rooted in the state university system.

Training Tennessee's Healthcare Workforce

Almost 60% of Erlanger's physicians have some connection to UT Health Sciences training, whether through medical school, residency, or fellowship. That pipeline has staffed Chattanooga and the surrounding region with providers who chose to stay in Tennessee.

The research backs what Dr. Bhattacharya sees daily. Academic medical centers with active training programs consistently demonstrate better patient outcomes than non-teaching hospitals.

Erlanger President and CEO Jim Coleman echoes that sentiment.

"Our longstanding partnership with UT Health Sciences is a cornerstone of Erlanger Health's mission to deliver exceptional care to our region. By training the next generation of physicians right here in Chattanooga, we benefit from the expertise of outstanding physicians like Dr. Bhattacharya. These talented professionals not only gain unparalleled hands-on experience but also choose to stay and serve our community, strengthening local access to specialized care for families across the region."

James Haynes, MD, dean of the UT Health Sciences College of Medicine - Chattanooga, says Dr. Bhattacharya embodies the spirit of this partnership.

"Dr. Bhattacharya is exactly what this partnership between UT Health Sciences and Erlanger is meant to produce. He's a surgeon who trained here, stayed here, and gives back at every level," Dr. Haynes says. "His commitment to his patients, his residents, and this community reflect the very best of what academic medicine can be, and we're proud to have him representing the University of Tennessee Health Sciences."

For Dr. Bhattacharya, each task at hand - whether it's meeting the newest cohort of residents, giving a lecture, or performing a surgery - traces back to thankfulness for what Tennessee gave him and a genuine desire to return the favor.

"I wake up every day with gratitude. Gratitude for my family, for my job, and for the chance to do this work," he says. "You have to start your day by understanding how lucky we are to do what we do, and then go out there and actually do it. That's what makes it mean something."