World-renowned cardiothoracic surgeon Stuart Jamieson, MB, FRCS, Distinguished Professor of Surgery and Chief, Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of California, San Diego, has been named first to hold the endowed Chair of Cardiothoracic Surgery at UC San Diego. The $2 million endowed Chair will enable Jamieson to recruit the nation’s best talent and to support the expanding heart and lung research of UC San Diego Medical Center’s physician-scientists.
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Stuart Jamieson, MB, FRCS, endowed Chair of Cardiothoracic Surgery at UC San Diego |
“This Chair acknowledges a lifetime of exceptional achievement on behalf of Dr. Stuart Jamieson,” said David Brenner, MD, UC San Diego Vice Chancellor of Health Sciences and Dean of the School of Medicine. “Through a world-class heart and lung surgery program, his lifesaving surgical skills attract thousands of patients to UC San Diego Medical Center. Not only is he a clinician with rare talent, he is a dedicated professor and researcher, who both locally and globally has helped hospitals develop leading heart and lung programs.”
“I am deeply honored to receive this recognition. This endowed Chair is a valuable asset to the Department of Surgery at UC San Diego and will benefit all patients in years to come as the university attracts and retains the best clinicians and researchers,” said Jamieson, who is also Director of the Lung Transplant Program, and Director-Elect of the Sulpizio Family Cardiovascular Center at UC San Diego Medical Center.
Jamieson’s research and therapies are known worldwide, particularly through the UC San Diego Pulmonary Thromboendarterectomy (PTE) Program. This program, largely developed by Jamieson, is foremost in the world in the successful treatment of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension, a condition requiring the complex and delicate surgical removal of scar tissue from the lungs.
“We are tremendously excited to establish this Chair on behalf of Dr. Jamieson, a remarkable surgeon whose spirit of invention and superior skill is a model for all practitioners,” said Mark A. Talamini, MD, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery at UC San Diego Medical Center. “We are grateful to the many donors who have made this endowed Chair possible.”
Background
Because of a civil war in his homeland of Zimbabwe, Jamieson left Africa for London, England, in the mid 1960s where he attended the University of London. Jamieson says he was always fascinated by heart transplantation and, in 1978, secured a highly coveted fellowship position with preeminent heart surgeon Norman Shumway, MD, of Stanford University, who performed the nation’s first heart transplant.
After training with Shumway, Jamieson went on to become the director of heart and lung transplantation at Stanford in 1982. In 1986, he became director of the Minnesota Heart and Lung Institute at the University of Minnesota.
UC San Diego Medical Center brought Jamieson and his entire team to San Diego in 1989. This same team has performed approximately 40,000 cardiothoracic surgeries during the last two decades. To this day, Jamieson’s patients are among the longest surviving lung and heart transplant patients in the world. While his work is highly complex, Jamieson’s approach is quite simple, “We never say something can’t be done; we just say it hasn’t been done yet.”
In May of 2008, Jamieson received the Ellis Island Award for his remarkable contributions in health and medicine to the U.S. The award “pays tribute to the ancestry groups that make up America’s unique cultural mosaic.” The list of past recipients includes Presidents Reagan and Ford, General Norman Schwarzkopf, Muhammad Ali, and Lee Iacocca.
Jamieson has co-authored two books, written more than 450 articles and given nearly 400 presentations and lectures to audiences around the world. Early in his career, in 1976, Jamieson received the “Young Investigator Award” from the European Congress of Cardiology, and the honors have continued throughout, including: President, International Heart and Lung Transplantation Society, 1988; President, International Society of Cardio-Thoracic Surgeons, 2003; President, World Congress of World Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons, 2004; and current Chancellor, World Society of Cardiothoracic Surgery.
Jamieson is also noted in:
Who’s Who Among American Teachers,
Who’s Who in Science and Engineering,Who’s Who in American Education,
Who’s Who in Medicine,
Who’s Who in America,
Who’s Who in the World,
Best Doctors in the West, and
Best Doctors in America.
Established in 1965, the Department of Surgery at UC San Diego Medical Center represents today more than 80 leading surgeons with specialties in open, minimally invasive and scarless surgery techniques.
The Department is committed to advancing surgical education by teaching and training the next generation of innovators; researching, testing and developing groundbreaking surgical techniques; providing superior patient care and service; and attracting a world-class faculty.
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Media Contact: Jackie Carr, 619-543-6163,
jcarr@ucsd.edu