The University of Kansas Adult Cardiothoracic Fellowship is a 12-month ACGME-accredited program. The mission of this program is to train motivated physicians in advanced aspects of perioperative/periprocedural care in the areas of cardiovascular medicine and thoracic surgery. This experience will prepare physicians to provide the highest quality of compassionate care to the people of Kansas and the surrounding region and continue the progression of knowledge through research and collaboration with their future partners in healthcare.

The opportunity for this new program arises out of the continued development of innovative and complex therapy options offered at our world-class academic medical center. Recruitment of experts in minimally invasive techniques and advanced heart failure, as well as the internal development of clinical research programs, has led to the foundation of a specialized heart valve center, heart failure center and heart transplant program at The University of Kansas Health System. The program faculty include 9 fellowship-trained cardiothoracic anesthesiologists.

The clinical education involves caring for patients in the operating room, other anesthetizing locations, and intensive care units, and includes experience providing anesthesia for cardiac, non-cardiac thoracic and intrathoracic vascular surgical procedures, as well as for non-operative diagnostic and interventional cardiac and thoracic procedures. Areas include heart transplantation, robotic-assisted surgery, transcatheter structural heart interventions, cardiac rhythm devices, adults with congenital cardiac disease, echocardiography, minimally invasive thoracic surgery, thoracic vascular intervention, and mechanical circulatory support.