Nicholas Zaorsky, MD

About

Nicholas G. Zaorsky, MD, MS, is a radiation oncologist with University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center. He is the Vice Chair for Education, Medical Student Clerkship Director, and the Chair of the Departmental Committee on Promotion and Tenure in the Department of Radiation Oncology at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center. He is a Tenured Professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. His areas of expertise are genitourinary cancer (e.g., prostate, bladder, kidney), skin cancer (e.g., basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, melanoma) and metastasis.

Dr. Zaorsky attended the University of Pittsburgh (David C. Frederick Honors College) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, graduating dual summa cum laude in 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts in Hispanic languages and literatures and a Bachelor of Science in neuroscience. He earned his medical degree at the Temple University School of Medicine (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) in 2011, where he was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha honors society.

Dr. Zaorsky’s postdoctoral training included an internship in medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) completed in 2012; a research fellowship with the Department of Radiation Oncology, Jefferson Medical College and Kimmel Cancer Center, Thomas Jefferson University, completed in 2013; and residency in radiation oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) completed in 2017, where Dr. Zaorsky served as Chief Resident. In 2019, Dr. Zaorsky obtained a Master of Science in Clinical Research at Penn State University College of Medicine (Hershey, Pennsylvania).

Dr. Zaorsky has been recognized with numerous awards and honors, including Cleveland Magazine's list of Top Doctors, 2024 and 2025; Top Peer Reviewer, Advances in Radiation Oncology, 2021; Featured Exceptional Teacher, Penn State College of Medicine, June 2021; the Samuel Hinkle Junior Faculty Research Award, Penn State College of Medicine, 2019; an Outstanding Mentor Award for Medical Students at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in 2024 and 2025; and the Most Cited Physician, Most Published Physician, and Most Press Mentions from Doximity/US News & World Report, 2021–2025.

He is an active member in such professional societies as American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO), American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO), American College of Radiology/American Radium Society (ARS), National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), American College of Radiation Oncology (ACRO), American Board of Radiology and Radiation Oncology Education Collaborative Study Group. He is the Vice Chair of the Genitourinary Oncology section of the ARS guidelines, a panel member of the NCCN palliative care guidelines, and the Liaison of the Finance & Development Committee and Member of the Accreditation Committee at ACRO.

Dr. Zaorsky is a regularly invited speaker and presenter of radiation oncology research, having delivered over 150 lectures, abstracts, oral presentations or exhibits at local, national and international conferences. In addition to serving as a reviewer for numerous peer-reviewed medical journals, he has authored or co-authored over 300 articles for such peer-reviewed medical journals as Nature Communications; The Lancet Oncology; Nature Reviews; Annals of Oncology; JAMA Oncology; International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics; European Urology Oncology; Journal of the National Cancer Institute; and Practical Radiation Oncology.

Throughout his career, he has authored more than 10 national and international guidelines for clinical management of patients with cancer, enrolled hundreds of patients in clinical trials, published hundreds of peer-reviewed articles, created hundreds of medical illustrations and helped train more than a thousand physicians and scientists. He developed a large clinical research group with over $1.5 million of funding from the American Cancer Society, Department of Defense and National Institutes of Health. He provides educational resources for radiation oncology and academic medicine: bit.ly/ZaorskyEducation.