The Medical School will establish an independent Department of Cardiac Surgery following action Sept. 15 by the Board of Regents.
It’s among the first new departments created at the Medical School in more than 10 years.
Cardiac surgery at U-M continues to evolve new approaches to the spectrum of cardiac diseases from congenital abnormalities to problems of the elderly.
The first pediatric open-heart surgery in the state, and one of the first in the nation, was performed at U-M in 1960.
Today U-M performs more than 2,000 heart operations a year, and heart programs housed at the Cardiovascular Center and the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital are consistently ranked among the tops in the nation.
“The establishment of an independent Department of Cardiac Surgery is critical to sustaining and enhancing the university’s reputation of excellence in this field. It will further our faculty members’ scholarly and educational activities with their peers across the university and across the nation,” says Dr. James Woolliscroft, dean of the Medical School and Lyle C. Roll Professor of Medicine.
Beyond its significant clinical footprint, cardiac surgery’s successful research programs are expected to expand in the areas of health outcomes research and clinical trials.
The development also is expected to affect recruitment and retention of faculty, enhance performance within the Cardiovascular Center, further academic training and enhance research potential.
