Jay Pruetz, MD

Jay D. Pruetz, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Southern California (USC) and director of the fetal cardiology program in the division of pediatric cardiology at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA). He graduated Cum Laude from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) with a Bachelors of Science in microbiology and molecular genetics in 1996, and then attended Tufts University Medical School where he graduated Alpha Omega Alpha in 2001. He completed his pediatric internship and residency at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles in 2004 and fellowship in pediatric cardiology at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in 2008. Dr. Pruetz is a board certified pediatrician since 2004 with subspecialty board certification in pediatric cardiology since 2008.

Dr. Pruetz is actively involved in the detection and pre-term management of fetuses with congenital heart disease, and he continues to care for these infants after they are born both during their inpatient stay in the hospital and once they are discharged home. He is a representative of the Heart Institute at CHLA who works closely with The Institute for Fetal Maternal Health (IMFH) at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center (HPMC) to care for fetuses diagnosed with major congenital malformations. This collaboration has provided him the unique opportunity to study outcomes for fetuses with critical heart lesions and develop new strategies to improve both prenatal and postnatal management.

Dr. Pruetz’s current research is focused on the evaluation of cardiac pathology associated with Twin-Twin Transfusion Syndrome in conjunction with Dr. Ramen Chmait of the USC Fetal Therapy Program. He is also involved in work to develop a fetal micro pacemaker to treat fetuses with complete congenital heart block. The combined efforts of these two unique programs working together will hopefully lead to the development of new and exciting fetal therapies and interventions to treat some of our most complex fetal patients.