Richard D. Weisel, CM FRCSC [1] is a Canadian-American cardiovascular surgeon and a professor of surgery at University of Toronto. He is the current editor-in-chief of the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and the current director of the Cardiothoracic Surgical Trials Network. [2] He is known for demonstrating that volume loading during cardiac surgery improved stroke volume in patients post-operatively. He is also a researcher specializing in myocardial protection, cardiac regeneration and stem cells. [3] [4]
Weisel completed his B.A. at Yale University in 1965. He then completed his M.D. at Medical College of Wisconsin (formerly Marquette Medical School) graduating in 1969. He completed his residency in general surgery at Boston University School of Medicine from 1969 to 1975. During his residency, he spent 2 years as a NIH funded research fellow in thoracic surgery at Boston University. From 1975 to 1976 he completed a fellowship in vascular surgery at Boston University. In 1976, he moved to Toronto to complete a fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery at University of Toronto. [5]
Following his fellowship, Weisel joined the Department of Surgery at University of Toronto and the Toronto General Hospital as a staff surgeon and assistant professor in 1978. He was later promoted to associate professor in 1984 and full professor of surgery in 1989. He served as the chair of the division of cardiac surgery at University of Toronto from 1998 to 2009. He served as the director of the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute from 2005 to 2011. [6] During his career, his research group has published over 400 publications. [7]
He was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2022. [1]
Cardiothoracic surgery is the field of medicine involved in surgical treatment of organs inside the thoracic cavity — generally treatment of conditions of the heart, lungs, and other pleural or mediastinal structures.
Sir Magdi Habib Yacoub, is an Egyptian retired professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Imperial College London, best known for his early work in repairing heart valves with surgeon Donald Ross, adapting the Ross procedure, where the diseased aortic valve is replaced with the person's own pulmonary valve, devising the arterial switch operation (ASO) in transposition of the great arteries, and establishing the heart transplantation centre at Harefield Hospital in 1980 with a heart transplant for Derrick Morris, who at the time of his death was Europe's longest-surviving heart transplant recipient. Yacoub subsequently performed the UK's first combined heart and lung transplant in 1983.
Tirone Esperidiao David, is a Brazilian-born Canadian cardiac surgeon and professor of surgery at the University of Toronto. He is an attending cardiac surgeon at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, Toronto General Hospital. He is known for his 2007 development of a valve sparing aortic root replacement procedure to preserve the aortic valve in patients with aortic root aneurysms such as in Marfan syndrome; it is now known as the "David Operation".
Walter Randolph "Ranny" Chitwood, Jr. is known for his work as a cardiothoracic surgeon at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University located in Greenville, North Carolina.
Bruce A. Reitz is an American cardiothoracic surgeon, best known for leading the first combined heart-lung transplantation in 1981 with pioneer heart transplant surgeon Norman Shumway. He obtained an undergraduate degree at Stanford University a medical degree at Yale Medical School and completed an internship at Johns Hopkins Hospital (1971) and residencies and fellowships at Stanford University Hospital the National Institutes of Health (1974). He joined the surgical faculty at Stanford University (1978) then became chief of cardiac surgery at Johns Hopkins University (1982–92) and Chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Stanford (1992–2005). In 1995 he conducted another pioneering operation: the first Heartport procedure, using a device that allows minimally invasive coronary bypass and valve operations. Reitz also played a major role in the resident education program at Stanford, which he reorganized and maintained.
David H. Adams is an American cardiac surgeon and the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Dr. Adams is a recognized leader in the field of heart valve surgery and mitral valve reconstruction. As director of Mount Sinai Mitral Valve Repair Center, he has set national benchmarks with >99% degenerative mitral valve repair rates, while running one of the largest valve repair programs in the United States. Dr. Adams is the co-inventor of 2 mitral valve annuloplasty repair rings – the Carpentier-McCarthy-Adams IMR ETlogix Ring and the Carpentier-Edwards Physio II Annuloplasty Ring, and is a senior consultant with royalty agreements with Edwards Lifesciences. He is also the inventor of the Tri-Ad Adams Tricuspid Annuloplasty ring with a royalty agreement with Medtronic. He is a co-author with Professor Alain Carpentier of the benchmark textbook in mitral valve surgery Carpentier's Reconstructive Valve Surgery. He is also the National Co-Principal Investigator of the FDA pivotal trial of the Medtronic-CoreValve transcatheter aortic valve replacement device.
Robert E. Michler is an American heart surgeon specializing in heart surgery, aortic and mitral valve repair, coronary artery bypass surgery, aneurysm surgery, and management of the failing heart. In 2017, Michler received the Vladimir Borakovsky Prize in Moscow from the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation for “his personal contributions to the development of cardiovascular surgery”.
Lawrence H. Cohn, was an American-born pioneering cardiac surgeon, researcher, and medical educator. He had been on the surgical staff at Harvard Medical School since 1971 and had been a Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School since 1980. In 2000, he was awarded the first endowed Chair in Cardiac Surgery at Harvard Medical School.
Lars Georg Svensson is a cardiac surgeon and the chairman of the heart and vascular institute at Cleveland Clinic. He is the Director of the Aorta Center, Director of the Marfan Syndrome and Connective Tissue Disorder Clinic, and is a professor of surgery at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and Case Western Reserve University. He is also the Director of Quality Outcomes and Process Improvement for the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and Affiliate Cardiac Surgery Program at Cleveland Clinic.
Norman Edward Shumway was a pioneer of heart surgery at Stanford University. He was the 67th president of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery and the first to perform an adult human to human heart transplantation in the United States.
Raja Michael Flores, M.D., is an American thoracic surgeon and former candidate for mayor of New York City, currently Chief of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital and Ames Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, both in New York City. On March 20, 2021, Dr. Flores announced his campaign for mayor of NYC.
Richard Lee is a cardiac surgeon in St. Louis, Missouri, who helped pioneer a staged Hybrid Maze, a procedure for atrial fibrillation or AFIB. combining surgery and catheter based approaches.
James K. Kirklin is an American cardiac surgeon who has made significant scientific and surgical contributions in the fields of heart transplantation and mechanical circulatory support devices to assist the pumping action of the heart. He is Professor of Surgery, former Director of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery (2006-2016), Director of the James and John Kirklin Institute for Research in Surgical Outcomes (2016–present), former Co-Director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Comprehensive Cardiovascular Center and holds the James Kirklin Chair of Cardiovascular Surgery at UAB.
David John Sugarbaker was an American physician who was chief of the division of general thoracic surgery and the director of the Baylor College of Medicine Lung Institute at CHI St. Luke's Health–Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center in Houston, Texas. He was an internationally recognized thoracic surgeon specializing in the treatment of mesothelioma, the surgical management of malignant pleural mesothelioma, and treatment of complex thoracic cancers.
Hans-Joachim Schäfers is a German surgeon, as well as cardiac, thoracic, and vascular surgeon and university professor. He is director of the department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at the Saarland University Medical Center in Homburg/Saar, Germany. He is known for his activities in aortic valve repair, aortic surgery, and pulmonary endarterectomy.
Rosalyn P. Scott is an American thoracic surgeon known for her work in education and for being the first African-American woman to become a thoracic surgeon.
Gerald Buckberg was an American surgeon. His research initially centered in the area of myocardial protection and led to the introduction of blood cardioplegia, which is currently used by over 85% of surgeons in the United States and 75% of surgeons worldwide for adult and pediatric heart operations. He was a member of multiple surgical societies, including the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, American Surgical Association, and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons. He was Professor of Surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Dr. Anil Bhan is the Chairman of Cardiac Surgery Heart Institute, Medanta Hospital, Gurugram, India. He graduated from Medical College Srinagar. He has the largest experience in aortic surgery in India since he has designed and developed more than 50 surgical instruments in the field of cardiac surgery. He was one of the team members to perform the first successful heart transplant in India in1994. He served as a co-founder of Max Heart and Vascular Institute, Saket, New Delhi, Director and Chief Co-Ordinator, Cardio thoracic and Vascular Surgery, MHVI, Saket.Additional Professor, Cardiothoracic Surgery and Vascular Surgery, AIIMS, New Delhi.
John D. Puskas is an American researcher, author, inventor and cardiovascular surgeon. As of 2022, he is Professor, Cardiovascular Surgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Chairman, Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at Mount Sinai Morningside, Mount Sinai Beth Israel and Mount Sinai West. He holds 11 U.S. patents and co-founded the International Coronary Congress and the International Society for Coronary Artery Surgery. He is credited by ResearchGate with 330 publications and 15,234 citations and as of 2022 Scopus reports an h-index of 62. Puskas is known for advancing coronary artery bypass (CABG) surgery by refining surgical techniques for all-arterial, off-pump CABG and inventing finer instruments to be used for advanced coronary bypass surgical procedures. He is credited with performing the first totally thoracoscopic bilateral pulmonary vein isolation procedure. He is the co-editor of State of the Art Surgical Coronary Revascularization, the first textbook solely devoted to coronary artery surgery.
Pedro J. del Nido is an American pediatric cardiac surgeon who was the 95th president of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS), succeeding David J. Sugarbaker and preceding Joseph S. Coselli.