Dr. Anson Lee Promoted to Associate Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery

The Stanford Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery is pleased to announce the promotion of Anson Lee, MD, to Associate Professor, effective October 1, 2025.

Dr. Lee joined the department in 2015, bringing his specialty in surgically treating all heart diseases, including arrhythmias, structural heart disease, aortic disease, and ischemic heart disease. He leads the Surgical Arrhythmia Program at Stanford Hospital and has a special interest in the surgical treatment of abnormal heart rhythms using minimally invasive techniques. Over the last decade, he has been instrumental in growing the volume of hybrid cardiac ablation and minimally invasive cardiac ablation procedures at Stanford.

“I am deeply honored by this promotion and grateful for the opportunity to continue my work at Stanford. There is no better place to contribute to the clinical care and scientific knowledge necessary for advancing the care of cardiovascular disease,” says Dr. Lee.

Dr. Lee directs the Cardiac Surgical Arrhythmia Research Laboratory, a basic and translational research lab that explores the mechanisms of atrial fibrillation (AFib) and arrhythmia ablation in order to develop novel therapies. Over the years, he has been recognized for his translational research on atrial fibrillation and his advancement of the hybrid ablation for the treatment of arrhythmia.

Dr. Lee received his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and completed surgical residency and cardiothoracic surgery fellowship at the same institution, where he learned advanced techniques for the surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation. During his surgical residency, he completed a postdoctoral research fellowship on an NIH training grant. He studied mechanisms of and therapies for cardiac arrhythmias at Washington University’s world-renowned arrhythmia lab where the original Cox Maze operation was invented.

His published work includes the development of novel bioelectronic sensors for performing high-resolution electrophysiology measurements in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, as well as a randomized controlled clinical trial on a subset of patients undergoing cardiac surgery that showed benefit from prophylactic amiodarone treatment in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Recently, he presented at the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) annual conference on increasing the adoption and penetration of arrhythmia surgery, where he discussed an innovative surgical strategy that improves patient outcomes. 

Dr. Lee is a member of the AATS, the American Heart Association, and the Society of Thoracic Surgery.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Lee on his promotion.