UofL names new chief of pediatric cardiac surgery division

Bahaaldin Alsoufi, M.D., has joined the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at the University of Louisville and Norton Children’s Hospital as the new chief of the Division of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery. He will practice with UofL Physicians - Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery. Alsoufi joins UofL after being on staff at Emory University.

“In Bahaaldin Alsoufi, we have an accomplished teacher, researcher and clinician,” said Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery Chair Mark Slaughter, M.D. “His expertise will be a great asset in contributing to our continued success in providing best-in-class care to our pediatric patients.”

“We’re excited to have Dr. Alsoufi join Dr. Erle H. Austin III and Dr. Deborah J. Kozik in helping us provide the most advanced care for children at the Norton Children’s Heart Institute,” said Steven T. Hester, M.D., division president, Provider Operations, and system chief medical officer, Norton Healthcare “Dr. Alsoufi will be part of a team that includes many heart specialists from UofL Physicians. This group collectively performs more than 17,500 procedures annually including heart transplants, open heart surgeries, catheterizations, electrophysiology and noninvasive tests, such as echocardiograms.”

Alsoufi is board-certified by the American Board of Surgery, American Board of Thoracic Surgery, American Board of Congenital Cardiac Surgery and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He has served as associate professor in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery’s Section of Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery at Emory in Atlanta since 2013. Prior to his appointment at Emory, Alsoufi served in a number of positions at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Alsoufi is lead or co-author on 150 peer-reviewed journal articles and has presented at more than 100 international, national, regional and institutional conferences. His clinical interests include neonatal cardiac surgery, single ventricle palliation, valvular heart disease in children and adults with congenital heart disease and pediatric heart transplantation. His research interests include clinical outcomes research, valvular heart disease, heart transplantation and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, known as ECMO, which is the process of providing prolonged cardiac and respiratory support to persons whose heart and lungs are unable to provide an adequate amount of gas exchange to sustain life.

Additionally, he serves on the editorial board of multiple international journals including the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and the World Journal of Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery. He is interested in quality, teaching and clinical outcome research and has received a number of teaching and academic rewards.  

Alsoufi is a native of Syria where he earned his M.D. degree from Damascus University. He completed a general surgery internship at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore and a general surgery residency at the University of Massachusetts in Worcester. He completed a cardiothoracic surgery residency at Oregon Health Science University, Portland; a fellowship in adult cardiac surgery at Toronto General Hospital, University of Toronto, Canada; and a fellowship in congenital cardiac surgery at the Hospital for Sick Children also at the University of Toronto.