Vaughn A. Starnes, M.D., looks forward to beginning a new venture now that USC has acquired two hospitals. In recent months Starnes was named chair of the expanded Department of Surgery at the Keck School of Medicine, the H. Russell Smith Foundation Chair for Cardiovascular Thoracic Research and surgeon-in-chief at USC University Hospital and USC Norris Cancer Hospital.

“I think our ownership of these two hospitals will  create the truly academic medical center environment that we’ve long sought,” Starnes says. “It’s going to be a great place to come to work.”

An internationally renowned surgeon, Starnes is acclaimed for his pioneering work in cardiothoracic surgery, heart and lung transplantation, and repair of congenital heart defects. He is also recognized for his expertise in heart surgery for children and newborns.

In 1990, Starnes performed the world’s first lobar transplant using a lung segment from a living donor. Three years later, he performed the first live-donor, double-lobar lung transplant on a patient with cystic fibrosis. The operation involved transplanting lung tissue from each of the patient’s parents. Starnes has conducted more living donor lung transplants in adults and children than any other surgeon in the United States.

Under his leadership in his former role as chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, USC surgeons conducted more than 15,000 open heart surgeries to repair and replace valves or create coronary artery bypasses, and more than 10,000 surgeries for diseases of the lungs, esophagus and chest wall.

He and his surgical team also performed Southern California’s first robotic heart operation in 2001 as part of a clinical trial evaluating the use of a remote surgical system.

Starnes is also the founding executive director of the USC CardioVascular Thoracic Institute, which is an innovative, interdisciplinary powerhouse, comprising clinicians and basic scientists who are exploring better and more innovative ways of treating heart disease.

In this next chapter of his career at USC as surgeon-in-chief, Starnes hopes to influence the surgical direction of the hospitals in areas such as innovative techniques, robotic surgery, microvascular surgery and bringing MRIs into the operating room. He hopes to help create a great place for surgeons to work.

“As surgeon-in-chief, I hope I can help make the hospital environment a very rewarding one,” Starnes says. “I wish to be the sounding board for surgeons of all specialties who have issues and ideas related to the operations of the hospitals.”

“I think when you have a sense of ownership you tend to work a little harder and you tend to focus a little bit more,” he says.
Starnes also wants to focus on medical education. “The quality of medical school education and residency education, I believe, is going to see a big improvement because there are new amenities that we can give to the residents and medical students that we were not able to in the past,” says Starnes. “I think faculty will really get engaged in the mission of teaching and education.”
When Starnes is not in the operating room, he enjoys golfing and skiing. He likes to golf with friends on Saturdays and loves to compete with his wife, Julie, in golf on Sundays. Athletic endeavors keep the mind sharp, he says.

“Athletics gives you a sense of team play, which I bring to the work place and try to bring a team approach to things,” says Starnes. “It’s going to be really important as we go forward in our new hospital venture that we have everyone working in a collaborative fashion and on the same team.”