Dr. Bacha is Professor of Surgery at Columbia University and serves as Chief of the Division of Cardiac, Thoracic, and Vascular Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. He is also co-Director of the Congenital Heart Center at NewYork-Presbyterian. Prior to this, he held the position of Senior Associate in Cardiac Surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital and Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Dr. Bacha earned his medical degree from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. He completed his surgical residency at Emory University, a research fellowship at Hôpital Marie-Lannelongue of Paris-Sud University, and his cardiothoracic surgery fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital.
An internationally recognized leader in both pediatric and adult congenital cardiac surgery, Dr. Bacha is among the pioneers of the hybrid stage I procedure for hypoplastic left heart syndrome. He is also the principal developer of a widely adopted technical competency metric for pediatric heart surgeons.
His research focuses on making pediatric cardiac surgery safer and less invasive and has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, the AATS Foundation, and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons.
Dr. Bacha has held numerous leadership roles within the AATS and the AATS Foundation, including serving as Treasurer of both organizations for five years. He has authored more than 350 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and is a past Associate Editor of The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.