Cardiothoracic Surgery Program

Yale-New Haven Hospital and Yale School of Medicine have been performing open heart surgery since 1956. The program was begun by heart surgery pioneer Dr. William W. L. Glenn. Dr. Graeme Hammond was instrumental in bringing the then-new technique of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) to Yale in 1969. Since then, Yale-New Haven Hospital surgeons have performed more than 30,000 open heart procedures.

Yale-New Haven Heart and Vascular Center performs all manners of open heart procedures, including CABG, valve repair and replacement, and all forms of pediatric cardiac surgery. Yale-New Haven performed the first heart transplant in New England in 1983. Yale is one of the country’s foremost centers for the treatment and study of aneurysms of the thoracic aorta. Yale’s pioneering work in aortic diseases has taken our team to virtually all states and 23 countries, where we have been invited to share our insights and techniques.

Yale-New Haven Heart and Vascular Center is proud of a leading clinical program in mitral valve repair spearheaded by Dr. Sabet Hashim. Yale has performed more Novacor artificial heart placements that any other center in the world, beginning in 1987; also, we are one of a very few centers to trial a new, miniaturized artificial heart developed by the pioneer Dr. Robert Jarvik. Yale-New Haven Heart and Vascular Center recently brought on board Dr. Toshiharu Shin’oka, of Tokyo, Japan, who pioneered a tissue engineering technique of manufacturing major blood vessels for young children in need of corrective cardiac surgery. Clinical trials at Yale will commence shortly.

The quality and safety of cardiac surgery at Yale-New Haven Heart and Vascular Center has been simply extraordinary. Yale has excelled compared to national benchmarks in the expansive Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) database for the last decade, with survival far exceeding mathematically predicted expectations. Currently, safety of surgery for CABG, valve replacement, aortic valve replacement, and combined procedures rank between the 96th and 100th percentile nationally.

Yale-New Haven Heart and Vascular Center is proud of having trained many generations of residents in the techniques of cardiac surgery, many of whom have gone on to become national leaders in the field.

John A. Elefteriades, MD
William W.L. Glenn Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery
Yale School of Medicine
Chief, Section of Cardiac Surgery, Yale-New Haven Hospital