My Biography
I chose to specialize in Cardiothoracic Surgery because ...
I was in my fourth year of training at Vanderbilt University Hospital when I attended a lecture presented by transplant pioneer, Norman Shumway, M.D.
I listened as Dr. Shumway described the new heart/lung transplantation procedures he was performing at Stanford University and I was immediately inspired to apply to the Stanford cardiothoracic program.
I was accepted in 1984, completed two years of training, served as chief resident in cardiac transplantation, and ended my time there as chief of the cardiothoracic surgical service for the children's hospital before coming here.
I joined Children's Hospital Los Angeles because...
I came to this hospital because I was given the opportunity to build a program that provides care for extremely sick children. I worked to build a program that, in essence, provides care that is focused on our patients, families, and referring physicians.
Our Heart Institute model is designed to make care easier on our patients and families, where they can come to one area of the hospital and receive all of their care.
What I love about my job is...
I love performing surgeries that save the life of a child. I am continually amazed by our families, how much faith they have in our program, and how much they go through, and how much love they have for their children.
Often, families come to us after they’ve been to other programs and determine our program is where they want to be for their child’s care.
Our staff members have experience handling complex problems and we are able to surround parents with professionals who have a lot of information and can answer their questions.
My Role at Children's
 My staff rely upon me to ...
My staff rely upon me to make the big decisions and to be the guiding force behind our major initiatives in improving care for children.
When we embark on a new initiative or service program for our patients, which we are doing constantly, it is my job to make sure that we have the right staff members, and the right resources available to us - this ensures that every step we make is the right step and a significant step forward for care.
A typical day for me includes ...
The majority of our most critically ill patients are newborns rushed here just after birth because their hearts are not functioning correctly and they need a corrective procedure. The heart of a newborn is only the size of a walnut, and the major arteries are fairly tiny at this point in their development.
As a surgeon, I have to be able to go into the operating room, perform the procedure quickly and skillfully, and get the heart back into working motion as quickly as possible in order to have the best result for the child. This part of my day requires an intense amount of focus and precision.
My work impacts the care of children in that ...
Having my position means that I am able to build a cutting-edge program with physicians, nurses and other healthcare professionals who are all committed to improving care for children.
Advances in surgery for children, many of which have happened right here at our hospital, means that we can dramatically change the lives of many, many children with very complex heart and lung disease.
As a result, I have to have a staff that is stellar, people that I can rely upon to carry out the very best care, making me responsible for recruiting the very best physicians who can care for children who require complicated procedures.
Each day, I interface with the following people ...
I interface constantly with people from both Children's Hospital and the University of Southern California where I hold a position as Chair of the Department of Surgery.
When I interact with a parent or family member of a child in our hospital for care, I have to interact with them in a calm and compassionate manner and be able to deliver information free of medical jargon and in a way that families can understand. I also need to be able to answer their questions, no matter how many times they ask them of me, and no matter how tough those questions are emotionally. All of my staff members need to be able to do this, and I think we do an outstanding job in this regard.
Strategic Initiatives
Development of the hospital's Heart Institute
Over the fifteen years that I have been here, my goal has been to develop a premier Heart Institute that serves as a model for family-centered cardiac care for children. Accomplishing this goal required completing multiple initiatives simultaneously.
First, I had to develop an internal Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery. Although our hospital has provided cardiac surgery for children since the 1930’s, at the time that I began this initiative, cardiothoracic care was provided by physicians from a private, university-based, practice.
I also worked to bring together many different hospital units to work together collaboratively in a way that they had not done before so that we could develop a one-stop shopping care delivery service.
In addition, the hospital's recovery and intensive care units were, at the time, divided by the age of patients rather than by the disorder that the patients had. I worked to create an intensive care unit that was based around cardiothoracic care. This initiative actually led to the hospital moving all of its units away from the age-based unit model to a disease-based model.
To accomplish this, we did a lot of recruitment. In addition to recruiting cardiothoracic surgeons, we recruited intensivists, nurse practitioners, and nurses with cardiac care experience.
My belief is that excellent care for a child occurs when all of the Divisions and programs called upon to provide care are excellent. In order to be home to a premier Heart Institute for children, I have worked hard in support of other divisions and units connected with my own to ensure care excellence across the entire Heart Institute.
My goal has been to have all of a child’s care provided on a single floor so that patients would not need to move to multiple floors throughout the hospital before they are able to return home, something that, with the opening of the Anderson Pavilion, became a reality.
Since the teams taking care of patients will all be located on one floor, our staff are specifically-trained to care for the cardiac patient, we can ensure that the very highest quality of care is provided for children.
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