Dr. Nathan completed both his undergraduate and medical education with honors at The Johns Hopkins University. He also completed advanced training in health services research and was awarded a PhD from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Nathan completed his clinical residency training in general surgery at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. He subsequently completed a clinical fellowship in complex general surgical oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he also served as the Chief Administrative Fellow in Surgery. He joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in 2014.

Dr. Nathan's clinical focus includes the multi-disciplinary treatment of tumors of the pancreas, liver, bile duct, and stomach. He has particular interests in the treatment of liver metastases from colorectal cancer and directs Michigan Medicine’s Hepatic Artery Infusion Pump (HAIP) Program. He also serves as the Surgical Director of the Multidisciplinary Pancreatic Cancer Clinic, coordinating the efforts of a multidisciplinary team at the busiest pancreatic cancer program in Michigan.

Dr. Nathan works to improve the value of surgical care for patients and payers. His health services research portfolio focuses on variation in the cost and quality of surgical care, and he seeks to identify strategies to improve outcomes and control costs. He received a K08 career development award from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and is a co-investigator on two National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 grants, all focused on evaluating the impact of Medicare payment policy innovations on the costs and quality of surgical care. Recently, his work has shifted on leveraging the assets of hospital systems to optimize surgical care. Dr. Nathan was awarded the 2018 Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson II Promising Investigator Award by the American College of Surgeons in recognition of his past work and anticipated future contributions.

Dr. Nathan is heavily involved in national and regional efforts to improve the value of healthcare services. He is the Director of the Michigan Value Collaborative, a coalition of 87 Michigan hospitals focused on achieving the best possible outcomes at the lowest reasonable cost for patients in Michigan. He is the Co-Chair of the Cancer Steering Committee for the Michigan Surgical Quality Collaborative (MSQC) and directs MSQC efforts to standardize pancreatectomy care across the state of Michigan. Finally, he is the Cancer Liaison Physician to Michigan Medicine for the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer.