Dr. Hughes graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.S. in biology from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. He went on to receive his medical degree from the Creighton University School of Medicine with Alpha Omega Alpha honors. He then completed his internship and residency in General Surgery at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire. After completing the Norman Thompson Endocrine Surgery Fellowship at the University of Michigan he served as Assistant Professor of Surgery at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, New York. Dr. Hughes then returned as a faculty member in the Department of Surgery at the University of Michigan in 2012.