Dr. Osmaan Khawaja is board certified by the American Board of Surgery. He is also a longstanding Fellow in The American College of Surgeons and a member of several professional societies. Before completing his medical education and surgical training, Dr. Khawaja served in The United States Army National Guard while attending Northwestern University and North Park College and Theological Seminary. Having completed undergraduate studies with honors, Dr. Khawaja earned his Doctorate of Medicine at Ross University School of Medicine.

Dr. Khawaja completed his clinical training in New York, NY, and his internship in general surgery at Northwell – Long Island Jewish Medical Center, in Long Island, NY. Following his surgical internship, Dr. Khawaja continued his residency within the prestigious Cleveland Clinic Health System in Cleveland, OH. His general surgery residency training was completed at Cleveland Clinic Akron General Medical Center in Akron, OH, after serving as Chief Resident during his final year of training there. Continuing to pursue a specialization, Dr. Khawaja attended fellowship training in burn surgery, trauma surgery, and critical surgical care at Stroger – Cook County Hospital in Chicago, IL.

Having spent seven years acquiring and refining his core surgical skills at major metropolitan centers of excellence, Dr. Khawaja took the uncommon path of building his own rural practice from the ground up in the hope of assisting smaller, underserved communities far away from the big cities. Independent and free from constraints that metropolitan surgeons sometimes face, he brought pioneering surgical innovation, including cranial nerve stimulator implantation, minimally invasive cancer treatment, and advanced reconstructive techniques, including stem cell-based skin substitute grafting. As a result, patients in need no longer had to travel great distances to access these surgical services.

His practice also included the comprehensive surgical care of residents at Winning Wheels in Prophetstown, IL, one of the few care centers in the nation to combine multidisciplinary brain and spinal cord rehabilitation with skilled nursing.

Incorporating reconstructive plastic surgical techniques to help wounded veterans and other paralyzed and quadriplegic residents enabled Dr. Khawaja to hone his surgical creativity to restore form and wholeness to the body. Reconstructive fat transplantation for the traumatically injured, the recent discovery of pluripotential stem cells in fat, and the frontier of regenerative medicine are specific areas of Dr. Khawaja’s academic interest. But, it was the purest satisfaction of a body transformative process, so gratifying to both the patient and the surgeon, that inspired Dr. Khawaja to follow a path that ultimately led to his partnership with Sono Bello.

Dr. Khawaja is best known for his high level of patient commitment and gentle bedside manner. His patients travel far and wide, knowing that he always tries to find ways to help people even if he himself cannot. His patient care philosophy begins with putting himself in your shoes and then letting everything unfold as it was meant to. Though he tries to consciously emulate the best qualities of the great surgeons who have trained and inspired him, the essence of his care is as simple as the golden rule.

When Dr. Khawaja is not in the operating room, he enjoys everything about cars and guitars. He remains stubbornly married to an ICU nurse he met on his first day of residency in Cleveland, with whom he is blessed to share three amazing sons.