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Official page of the Columbia University Department of Surgery.
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25/07/2025

Heartstrings—they’re more than just a metaphor!

These cord-like tendons connect your papillary muscles to the tricuspid valve and bicuspid valve in your heart. 🌈

21/07/2025

ORs have trees too, suture trees. Sutures are used to close wounds and come in many shapes and sizes. The materials fall under two general classifications: absorbable and non-absorbable.

Did you know that sutures and stitches are not the same things? Suture is the device; stitch is the technique. 😉

11/07/2025

Cutting-edge cardiac research doesn’t mean reinventing the wheel every time. That’s where the Surgical Cardiovascular Research Institute (CVRI) comes in:
〰️Biobanks with real human tissue
〰️Resident–researcher matchmaking
〰️Funding help
〰️ Collaboration hubs
〰️ Ex vivo heart preservation
〰️ Valve implants that grow with kids
(to name a few)

Co-director Dr. Giovanni Ferrari shares how the Surgical CVRI is making innovation easier for surgeon-scientists and researchers across .

🔗 Full interview in bio.

10/07/2025

July is Cleft and Craniofacial Awareness Month—and this smile says it all. Meet Saeed. His journey through cleft lip and palate repair is one of strength, resilience, and endless cuteness. Today, we’re celebrating him as our Smile of the Month!

As Dr. Thomas Imahiyerobo, Chief of Cleft and Craniofacial Surgery, puts it:

✨”One of my goals is to really highlight the incredible journeys our patients have gone through. I’m really proud of them. Cleft lip and palate are very common—1 in 700 births. Most people know someone who’s had it, even if they don’t realize it.

The cleft journey isn’t just about one surgery. It’s about a long-term relationship. We grow up with these families.” ✨

Swipe to see Saeed’s transformation, and read the full interview on the current and future state cleft and craniofacial care at the link in bio. 🔗

09/07/2025

That sci-fi movie is not so far off. In the latest installment of Future, Today, Chief of Plastic Surgery Dr. Christine Rohde shares how tissue engineering and AI are opening new doors in reconstruction.

Read more at the link in bio.

07/07/2025

When Nadine Davis developed heart failure, pulmonary hypertension, and cirrhosis, it became clear: a triple transplant—heart, lungs, and liver—was her only chance.

What followed was a 14-hour surgery and months of preparation from a multidisciplinary team across / . And it marked a milestone: New York’s first-ever heart-lung-liver transplant.

“You can’t have a successful triple transplant unless you have excellence in so many different areas. From nursing and pharmacy to social work and psychiatry, this is a massive team effort,” says cardiologist, Dr. . “This is a very high-level, complicated ex*****on. It’s like an orchestra, and when it works, it’s beautiful.”

Read the full story at the link in bio.

Photos:
1, 2, 3: Imaging of Nadine’s heart (1), lung (2), and liver (3). She was experiencing heart failure, pulmonary arterial hypertension, and congestive liver cirrhosis at the time of the transplant.
4. Image showing congestion within the liver that led to cirrhosis.
5. Nadine Davis, left, with Dr. Haythe

30/06/2025

Will cold storage become a thing of the past?

Chief of Tranplant Surgery, Dr. Tomoaki Kato, explains how normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) lets the liver metabolize and produce bile outside the body, reducing injury and improving transplant outcomes.

“We’re already doing this . I think it’s going to expand beyond the liver to other organs—heart, kidney, etc.—and eventually, it will transform transplant surgery.”

🔗Link in bio for Dr. Kato’s full response!

26/06/2025

ICYMI, in a single, intense 24-hour period, pediatric heart surgeons took on a surgical feat rarely performed—a split domino heart transplant. It’s a surgery of cascading proportions where a donor’s heart is transplanted into a child, and the healthy parts of that child’s explanted heart are used to save two additional lives.

Late in the summer of 2024, three children—Hend, John, and Teddy—were the first to receive a split-domino heart transplant in New York, each undergoing a different complex open-heart procedure in carefully orchestrated stages.

Led by David Kalfa, MD, PhD, and Andrew Goldstone, MD, PhD, get a glimpse of surgical timeline, hour by hour, at the link in our bio. ✨

20/06/2025

“It used to be that some problems were only surgical… now most diagnoses are multifaceted.”

As Chief of Breast Surgery, Dr. Roshni Rao sees a future where care is no longer siloed by specialty. Surgeons will be part of broader diagnostic and disease management teams—integrating genetics, medicine, radiation, and beyond.

Read her full perspective at the link in bio 🔗

15/06/2025

This Father’s Day, we’re honored to share David Diaz’s story—a dad who found the strength to change his life so he could be there for the moments that matter most.

〰️
My Journey: From 495lbs to 187lbs – A New Life at 50

My name is David Diaz. I’m 5’6” and, not long ago, I weighed 495 pounds.

Everything changed during a visit to my primary care doctor. She knew how much I love my daughter—she’s all I ever talked about in our appointments. One day, she looked at me and said, “David, if you want to see your daughter grow up, graduate, and maybe even walk her down the aisle one day, you need to lose weight.”

That conversation hit me hard—and it changed everything.

From that day forward, I followed every recommendation she gave me. That’s how I met Dr. [Makram] Gedeon, a man I truly credit with saving my life. He might say he was just doing his job, but to me, he’s one of my heroes.

One year later, at 50 years old, I now weigh 187 pounds. I feel healthier than I’ve ever felt in my life. My bloodwork is excellent, I’m no longer pre-diabetic, and I’m so active that I honestly feel like a teenager again (no joke!).

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to Dr. Gedeon and the entire team at Presbyterian Hospital in Westchester.

You gave me my life back—and more importantly, the chance to be there for the moments that matter most.
〰️

To all the dads, father figures and mentors alike, thank you for all you do! Happy Father’s Day!

📷
1: David with his eleven month old daughter Eliana
2/3: David with his 12 year old Angelica
4: Before and after surgery!

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