Departmental Highlights Archive

Bringing the Best to Every Child | Frank Hanley, MD, Executive Director, Children's Heart Center

Renowned heart surgeon Frank Hanley, MD, shares why patients around the country come to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, and what motivates him to provide care that doesn’t miss a beat.

November 13, 2015

Why a 61-year-old went to children's hospital for heart surgery

But most adults with repaired congenital heart defects are not cured, doctors have learned. As their discipline has matured, cardiologists have honed their understanding of how to help patients like Yoon navigate the risks of living with lingering heart problems, as well as learned how congenital defects interact with cardiovascular problems people acquire with age.

October 20, 2015

Five Lifesaving Organ Transplants in 48 Hours Means a Very Busy Weekend at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford

Weekends at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford can be busy, but one recent weekend in July yielded a remarkable 48-hour whirlwind of multiple organ transplants.

August 20, 2015

Ngan Huang, PhD, receives 2015 McCormick-Gabilan Fellowship

Ngan F. Huang, PhD, Assistant Professor of CT Surgery, was selected to receive the 2015 McCormick-Gabilan Fellowship from the Provost. The Fellows represent a group of faculty that promotes the support of women in the sciences and engineering at Stanford.  She intends to use this prestigious award for mentoring female trainees in cardiovascular tissue engineering research, as well as in career development towards research independence.

August 10, 2015

Anson Lee Joins the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery

The Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery welcomes Anson Lee, MD, Assistant Professor, as the newest surgeon in Stanford's Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery.

Dr. Lee joins us from Washington University in St. Louis, where he completed his advanced training, specializing in complex cardiac arrhythmia surgery, transplants/VADs, and TAVR. He established a reputation there as an outstanding surgeon. Dr. Lee is a native of Southern California. He attended the University of California, San Diego as an undergraduate and Washington University for medical school, where he also conducted all of his residency training. Dr. Lee also completed a basic science postdoctoral research fellowship studying mechanisms of and therapies for cardiac arrhythmias in the world-renowned Washington University arrhythmia laboratory in which the original Cox Maze operation was invented.

Dr. Lee will be participating in multiple facets of adult cardiac surgery at Stanford. He will lead our Surgical Arrhythmia Program, working closely with the Stanford Electrophysiology Section. Dr. Lee will also develop a basic and translational research laboratory studying mechanisms underlying arrhythmia ablation and has already initiated collaborations in the Cardiovascular Institute and Stanford Electrical Engineering.

August 7, 2015

Leah Bachus Joins the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery

The Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery welcomes Leah Backhus, MD, as the newest surgeon in Stanford’s Division of Thoracic Surgery and Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery.

Leah comes to us from the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, where she had a very successful five years as Assistant and Associate Professor, working at both the University Hospital and the VA Puget Sound. She established a reputation there as an outstanding surgeon, teacher, and health services researcher.

Leah attended undergraduate school here at Stanford, trained in Surgery at USC, and trained in Thoracic Surgery at UCLA prior to moving to UW.

At Stanford, she will split her time between SUMC and the VA Palo Alto. She will serve as Associate Program Director for the Thoracic Track component of our CT Surgery residency and also as co-director, with Dr. Mark Berry, of a new Health Services Research Program within the Department.

The JCTSE TSDA Cardiothoracic Surgery Resident "Top Gun" Competition was held on April 25, 2015, in conjunction with the AATS 95th Annual Meeting. This year’s competition was supported in part by the AATS Graham Foundation and with an in-kind donation provided by Medtronic.

July 2015

Five medical students named Howard Hughes Medical Institute research fellows

Five medical students at Stanford have been named Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Fellows. They are among 68 students from 37 schools who were selected for the program, which allows medical, dental and veterinary students to pursue biomedical research at academic or nonprofit research institutions anywhere in the United States, except at the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland, and other federal agencies.

April 30, 2015

Catching Up With Our Past Presidents

Where are they now? What have they been up to? CHEST’s Past Presidents each forged the way for the many successes of the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST), leading to enhanced patient care around the globe. Their outstanding leadership and vision are evidenced today in many of CHEST’s current initiatives, and now it is time to check in with these past leaders to give us a look at what’s new in their lives.

March 24, 2015

Teen's rare congenital heart defect fixed at Stanford Children's Health

Thirty years ago, most patients with congenital abnormalities of the coronary arteries were only diagnosed after collapsing from a heart attack in their teens or 20s. But in the past dozen years, advances in imaging technologies have made it easier to see minute details of the coronary arteries, and more cases are being identified before these young patients suffer severe consequences.

March 23, 2015

Boy's 26 arterial narrowings fixed in one fell swoop

Cardiothoracic surgeon Frank Hanley corrected more than two dozen pulmonary artery narrowings in a 6-year-old patient during one marathon surgery.

March 19, 2015

Newborn with heart defect saved after 13-hour operation

The baby’s condition, tetralogy of Fallot, was complicated by the fact that he was also missing his pulmonary valve and one of his pulmonary arteries was detached. But a doctor gave the distraught parents a glimmer of hope.

March 19, 2015

Jeff Cohen, Stanford Post doc in the Joseph Woo Lab receives AATS C. Walton Lillehei award for Stanford

Through a generous unrestricted educational grant from St. Jude Medical, Inc., the AATS C. Walton Lillehei Resident Forum recognizes the extraordinary contributions of to our specialty by Jeff Cohen, a great innovator in congenital and vascular disease. Selected by the Cardiothoracic Residents Committee, the recipient receives a $5,000 award.

2015

Our department is the second highest program in the country for heart transplants, and also surpasses the 1,000 major case milestone for adult cardiac surgery volume in a year

Stanford handled more heart transplant surgeries in 2015 than any other hospital in the country except one, and our surgeons handled more than 1,000 major cases for the first time ever in a single year. With a larger department, we have nearly doubled the number of annual surgeries we perform since 2013.

2015

One Hundred Years of History at Stanford University: Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery

The history of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery at Stanford spans a century long period, beginning not long after the founding of Stanford University. Pioneering Stanford surgeons have made landmark discoveries and innovations in pulmonary, transplantation, thoracic aortic, mechanical circulatory support, minimally invasive, valvular, and congenital heart surgery. Fundamental research formed the foundation underlying these and many other advances. Educating and training the subsequent leaders of cardiothoracic surgery has throughout this century-long history constituted a mission of the highest merit.

2015