Dr. Eric Fonkalsrud grew up in Seattle, where he graduated from the University of Washington and was a member of the National Championship Rowing Crew. He attended the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and completed a General Surgery internship and a year of residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He completed his residency in General and Thoracic Surgery at the UCLA School of Medicine. Following a two-year fellowship in Pediatric Surgery at the Columbus Children's Hospital, he joined the full-time faculty in the Department of Surgery at the UCLA Medical Center and was appointed Chief of Pediatric Surgery in 1965.

During his 36 year tenure as Chief of Pediatric Surgery at the UCLA School of Medicine, Dr. Fonkalsrud has developed an active clinical and research program in the management of Inflammatory Bowel Disease in children and adults. He was among the pioneers who developed the ileonal pouch procedure for patients with severe ulcerative colitis and began studies of the physiological implications of this extensive operation. His group has performed colectomy and ileonal pouch procedures on more than 150 children and 600 adults, which represents one of the country's largest clinical experiences with this operation. Dr. Fonkalsrud initiated liver transplantation at the UCLA Medical Center in the 1960's and is a world authority on the management of congenital chest wall malformations, gastroesophageal reflux disease in children, and neonatal surgery. He has performed more than 14,000 operations. Dr. Fonkalsrud is also a volunteer surgeon at the Venice Family Clinic. Fourteen of his residents and research fellows have gone on to train in Pediatric Surgery Fellowship programs.

Dr. Fonkalsrud has authored 448 publications in scientific journals, 120 book chapters, and 5 books. He has served on the editorial boards of 15 major surgical journals, and as President of 9 Regional, National, and International Surgical Societies, including the American Pediatric Surgical Association, the Society of University Surgeons, the Association for Academic Surgery, and the Pacific Coast Surgical Association. He has received the Mead Johnson Scholarship Award in Academic Medicine, and the Markle Scholar Award in Academic Medicine. He was a consultant to the NIH for four years and a James IV Traveling Surgical Scholar to the United Kingdom in 1971.

Dr. Fonkalsrud is an Honorary Fellow of the German, Japanese, and Polish Surgical Societies. He was awarded the Herbert Coe Medal for lifetime contributions to the field of Pediatric Surgery from the Pacific Associations of Pediatric Surgeons. Listed in the "Best Doctors in America," "Who's Who in America," and "Who's Who in the World," Dr. Fonkalsrud was honored as "Man of the Year" by the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Southern California in 1999. He was elected to the Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars in 2003, and received the UCLA Medical Alumni Professional Achievement Award in 2003.

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