Mass General Brigham continues an exciting and transformative journey to create the best academic health system in the world. After careful consideration and collaboration, it has been decided to integrate two of the finest divisions of Cardiac Surgery and Vascular and Endovascular Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital into unified Mass General Brigham divisions. This decision was made with the utmost consideration for both institutions’ patients, trainees and research missions. By joining forces, the goal is to elevate the quality of care provided, enhance all training programs and further the groundbreaking research being done.
Thor Sundt, MD
Chief, Division of Cardiac Surgery, MGB
Director, Corrigan Minehan Heart Center
Co-Director, Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Program
Edward D. Churchill Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Sundt is the Edward D. Churchill Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and chief of the Division of Cardiac Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. He trained in general surgery at MGH and in cardiothoracic surgery at Washington University in St. Louis before taking additional training and his first consultant position at the National Health Service of the United Kingdom. He returned to Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in 1994, where he led the Cardiac Transplant Program and established a Thoracic Aortic Surgery Program before relocating to the Mayo Clinic in 2001. At Mayo, he served as vice chair of the Department of Surgery, in addition to leading the Marfan Syndrome and Thoracic Aorta Program. Although he grew up in Rochester, he was thrilled to “come home” to Boston and MGH as chief of Cardiac Surgery in 2011. Since then, Dr. Sundt has devoted his efforts to building a multidisciplinary team of practitioners focused on delivering the best possible care to each and every patient, while contributing to the education of the next generation of caregivers and discovering the care of the future. He regards the culture of teamwork across disciplines and the evolution of the Heart Center, in collaboration with the Division of Cardiology, as well as colleagues in Anesthesia and Critical Care, as a manifestation of that philosophy and the most critical element of the program at MGH; he believes the same focus on teamwork will be critical to our collective success in the future as MGB Cardiac Surgery.
Dr. Sundt’s clinical focus has been on surgery for the correction of acquired cardiovascular conditions in adults, including thoracic aortic disease, valvular heart disease and arterial revascularization for coronary artery disease. He has published over 400 articles. His research interests have ranged from organ transplantation to the genetics and genomics of bicuspid aortic valve disease. He has received funding for this work from the National Institutes of Health, the American Association for Thoracic Surgery and The Mayo Foundation. Most recently, he collaborated with investigators in the disciplines of human factors and systems engineering to improve the safety and efficiency of health care delivery. On a national level, he was the first chair of the Workforce on Patient Safety for the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) and is a past president of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS).
Dr. Sundt regards it as his privilege and responsibility to preserve and build upon the proud legacies of Cardiac Surgery in both programs, while leveraging the power of the system to better serve our patients.
