Dr. Joseph Lamelas, an internationally recognized expert in minimally invasive heart surgery, is Professor and Chief of Cardiac Surgery in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Miami Health System, Miller School of Medicine.
Dr. Lamelas has been in practice since 1990 and has completed more than 17,000 cardiac surgical operations in his career. Dr Lamelas has played a significant role in advancing the field of minimally invasive cardiac surgery, as well as developing facilitating instruments. He has trained more than 800 physicians from around the world in this approach over the last 14 years.
While he practices all facets of cardiac surgery, his main focus over the past 14 years has been minimally invasive cardiac surgery. Dr. Lamelas has developed techniques to facilitate minimally invasive approaches for repairing simple congenital cardiac defects, removal of cardiac tumors, aortic valve surgery, mitral valve surgery, double and triple valve surgery, as well as replacing the ascending aorta and aortic root without splitting the sternum.
Minimally invasive valve surgery allows for less bleeding, transfusions, a shorter stay in the hospital as well as a quicker return to a full and normal level of activity. Most valve surgery patients are candidates for this procedure.
Dr. Lamelas is board certified in thoracic surgery and a member of the American Association of Thoracic Surgeons and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Lamelas has lectured both nationally and internationally and his work in the field of minimally invasive valve surgery has been extensively published.
Dear Dr Lamellas, I have been a regular reader of your blogs and an admirer of your surgical skills and abilities over the past few years. I am a Consultant CardioThoracic Surgeon in England. I have done over 250 Minimal acces Mitral and Tricuspid cases and have recently started a RAT program. Vinnie Bapat proctored me and mentioned that he found his visit to your hospital very educational and recommended it.
I am keen to watch someone to both inspire me to move things forward but also to have someone as a mentor going forward. I share your ethos on trying to teach these techniques and have an Italian doctor training with me as a fellow in Minimally invasive surgery.
I was hoping to arrange a visit to your institution sometime in the coming months so that both me and my team could see how you do such large numbers and try and bring some things back to the NHS in the UK. I hope you will be able to facilitate this visit for both me and my team.
Look forward to hearing from you,
Regards and best wishes,
Joe
You are welcome to come although it is best done through either Medtronic or St.Jude since we have structured courses at least once a month.
This is Hartmuth B. Bittner, MD, PhD, a previous CV surgeon from the Heart Center of Leipzig and Fred Mohr’s Insttution practicing now in Tampa. I really appreciate all your teaching and your great presentations. I am really thankful for that. I’m interested in your MICS-MV set-up and the instrumentation. Do you think that the company of your main instrument manufacturer e.g. left atrial lift might get in contact with me and the rep would sponsor an observation day at your institution. Thank you again, best regards, Hartmuth
(407 921 8094)
hbittner@gccsiinc.com or heartbeatgermany@aol.com
I work with both Medtronic and St. Jude. They can arrange a visit during one of my monthly courses.
Medtronic distrubutes the Miami Instrument product line which you see me use.
Looking forward to meeting you.