Cardiac, Thoracic Surgery has new chief

Nationally recognized as a leader in the surgical treatment of heart failure, including transplantation, Valluvan Jeevanandam, M.D., has been appointed Section Chief of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery at the University Medical Center.

Jeevanandam, 38, comes to Chicago from Temple University Medical Center in Philadelphia, where in 1992, he began serving as surgical director of the cardiac transplant program. Under his direction, that transplant team became a leader in testing new approaches to transplant immunology and expanding the criteria for suitable donor hearts.

At Temple, Jeevanandam also served as principal investigator for clinical trials of left-ventricular-assist devices as bridges to transplants or as permanent treatments for heart failure, transmyocardial laser revascularization and left-ventricular-reduction surgery for end-stage heart disease.

“We are genuinely excited to have recruited such a distinguished surgeon andscholar to lead this growing program,” said Bruce Gewertz, M.D., the Dallas B. Phemister Professor and Chairman of Surgery at the University.

“The only thing more startling than his achievements is that he has done all this in less than four decades.”

The author of seven book chapters and more than 100 scientific articles and an editor or reviewer for several surgical journals, Jeevanandam frequently speaks at international conferences on cardiac surgery and transplantation.

At the same time, he has run an active laboratory research program, investigating the scientific underpinnings of new methods to improve heart function, preserve organs for transplant and prevent transplant rejection.

Born in 1960 in Tuticorin, India, Jeevanandam earned his B.A. in biochemistry summa cum laude from Columbia University in New York at the age of 19.

He received his M.D. from Columbia at 23, winning the medical school’s overall Rudin Achievement Award as well as the Janeway Prize for Excellence in Medicine, the Whipple Prize for Excellence in Surgery and the J. Rudin Award for Achievement in Physiology. Jeevanandam then completed his surgical residency, a research fellowship in transplantation and a cardiothoracic surgery fellowship, all at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.

While teaching at Temple University from 1992 until this year, Jeevanandam became surgical director for the cardiomyopathy and transplantation program at Temple University Hospital as well as program director for the cardiac and thoracic surgery department at Lower Bucks Hospital.