The 96th American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) Annual Meeting was held grandly in the Baltimore Convention Center, USA from May 14th–18th, 2016. During the annual meeting, many new ideas and technologies were shared. This time, the Editorial Office of Journal of Visualized Surgery (JOVS) was honored to invite Prof. Thoralf Sundt, from Massachusetts General Hospital, to have an interview with us.
Expert introduction
Thoralf Sundt, MD, is the Churchill Professor of Surgery, chief of the Division of Cardiac Surgery and director of the Corrigan Minehan Heart Center.
Prof. Sundt’s clinical focus has been on surgery for the correction of acquired cardiovascular conditions in adults. He is an internationally recognized thought-leader on thoracic aortic aneurysms and other aortic diseases, having written and lectured extensively on the subject. He is also widely recognized as an expert in reparative procedures for vascular heart conditions, including mitral regurgitation and aortic valve regurgitation. He has also contributed to the literature on the optimal use of arterial conduits to improve the long-term durability of coronary bypass procedures.
His research interests have ranged from organ transplantation to the genetics and genomics of bicuspid aortic valve disease. He has received funding by the National Institutes of Health, the AATS and The Mayo Foundation for this work. Most recently, he collaborated with investigators in the disciplines of human factors and systems engineering to improve the safety and efficiency of healthcare delivery. On a national level, he was the first chair of the Workforce on Patient Safety for the Society of Thoracic Surgeons. He is actively collaborating with members of the Mass General Physician Organization in the development of tools to enhance patient centered and shared decision-making.
He has served in numerous executive roles, including surgical director for cardiac transplantation at Washington University in St. Louis, surgical director of the Thoracic Aortic and Marfan Clinic at the Mayo Clinic and vice-chair of the Department of Surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Prof. Sundt is a member of numerous medical and surgical societies and is the vice president of the AATS, the most prestigious academic cardiothoracic surgical organization in the world.