Dr. Mitchell grew up in Florida and Georgia, and is a graduate of the University of Georgia and Georgetown University School of Medicine. He received his General Surgery training at the University of California in San Francisco and the University of Mississippi. He also completed a surgical research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health and a fellowship in Vascular Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Mitchell's research interests include pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, epidemiology of vascular disease and endovascular surgery. He joined the UMMC faculty in 2005 and was named the James D. Hardy Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery in 2007.