Dr. David H. Harpole

Vice Chief, Division of Surgical Services

Duke Cancer Institute

2424 Erwin Road, Suite 403
Durham, NC 27705
(919) 668-7157

Washington & Lee University

University of Virginia - 1984

Duke University Medical Center

Duke University Medical Center

Overview and Educational Background

Dr. David H. Harpole currently holds the position of Associate Professor of Surgery and Assistant Professor of Pathology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. His early medical career began in Lexington, Virginia where he attended Washington & Lee University earning degrees in both Chemistry and Biology. He then went on to medical school at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Dr. Harpole also studied Health Economics in the Physician Executive Leadership Program at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

Professional Highlights

Duke University Medical Center would be Dr. Harpole's home from 1984 to 1993 as he completed his General Surgery Internship, became a Junior Assistant Surgical Resident and completed a Thoracic Surgical Research Fellowship there. He also held the position of Senior Assistant Surgical Residency, Chief Resident in General Surgery and Teaching Scholar in Thoracic Surgery at Duke University Medical Center.
Dr. Harpole then moved to Boston, Massachusetts to become an Instructor in Surgery at Harvard Medical School from 1993 to 1996. During that time, he also worked as an Associate in Thoracic Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a Consultant in Thoracic Surgery at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Staff Thoracic Surgeon at West Roxbury Veteran's Medical Center in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.
Aside from his teaching positions at Duke University Medical Center, Dr. Harpole serves as the Director of Lung Cancer Prognostic Research Laboratory and Vice Chair of Faculty Affairs at Duke. He also is the Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.
Dr. Harpole is certified by the American Board of Surgery as well as the American Board of Thoracic Surgery. He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology as well as the Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Other memberships to professional societies include; the Society of University Surgeons, Association of Academic Surgery, a Fellow in the American College of Chest Physicians and the Thoracic Surgery Subcommittee Chair.

Clinical and Laboratory Research

Research interests for Dr. Harpole focus on mesothelioma, general thoracic surgery, advanced airway and thoracoscopic surgery, benign and malignant disease of the lung, esophagus and mediastinum; esophageal cancer, oncology, and hyperhidrosis palmaris.
Other research interests include non-small cell lung cancer, and clinical research on the development of esophageal cancer treatment protocol as well as the creation of databases, the development of risk associated models of morbidity in cancer patients that undergo thoracic surgery procedures, as well as the cost and satisfaction evaluation of thoracoscopy and open throacotomy in cancer patients.

Publications

Dr. Harpole has authored or co-authored a number of scholarly publications. His, "Predictive Value of the EphA2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinase in Lung Cancer Recurrence and Survival," was published in Clinical Cancer Reserch in 2003. "Outcomes after esophagectomy: a ten-year prospective cohort," was published the same year in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery.