2026 International Faculty
Professor Ralph Damiano
Ralph J. Damiano Jr., MD, is the Evarts A. Graham Professor of Surgery in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. He is cochairman of the Heart & Vascular Center. Dr. Damiano was Chief of the Division from 2014 – 2025, and Cardiac Section Chief from 2000 – 2014.
Dr. Damiano has been a pioneer in the area of minimally invasive cardiac surgery. His developmental work on robotically assisted microsurgery for coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) earned him a Computer World Smithsonian Award in June of 1997. Dr. Damiano performed the first robotically assisted surgical procedure in North America, a CABG, in December 1998. He also has been a leader in the field of the surgical treatment of arrhythmias. His team at Washington University is world-renowned for its clinical and basic research on the surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation. His group has been continuously funded by the NIH for over 30 years in this area. They have developed the gold-standard surgical procedure, the Cox-Maze IV operation, which has been adopted around the world. His group has continued to evolve the procedure to be less-invasive, more effective, and more widely applicable to patients with this arrhythmia.
Dr Gry Dahle
Consultant, Dept. of Cardiothoracic- and vascular Surgery, Rikshospitalet, Oslo University hospital.
Dr Dahle is a female cardiac surgeon with special interest in new Innovations, cardiac catheter treatment, heart failure and imaging.
She is the current president of ISMICS., annual meeting will be held in Miami June 2026.
She is in the task force for Heart Failure and has served as the chair of Catheter treatment in EACTS and also served in the Techno College task force. For several years she has been in the faculty of CSI meeting Frankfurt and also in the HF-CSI.
She is in the Board of Medical Societies in the Norwegian Medical Association and has served the president of the Norwegian Association for Cardiothoracic surgery for 4 years.
She is the chair of the Norwegian national ethical committee for devices and new drugs since 2018.
She is assitant Editor of Innovations and ICVTS and Board member of Medistim.
She has completed CAS leadership course in Zurich on mitral and tricuspid treatment and also imaging.
She was the lead PI of Tendyne study in Norway and also a proctor for Tendyne (Abbott).
She defended her thesis on “Implementation of transcatheter aortic valve implantation: clinical, patient experience, economical and occupational hazard issues» in 2021.
Dr Torsten Doenst
Torsten Doenst graduated in 1995 as a medical doctor at the Georg-August-University in Goettingen, Germany. He received his board certification in cardiac surgery in 2003 after completing his residency at the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at the University of Freiburg, Germany. During his residency, he completed a research fellowship in the laboratory of Heinrich Taegtmeyer, M.D., D.Phil in the Division of Cardiology at the University of Texas and a clinical fellowship in the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at the Toronto General Hospital under Dr. Tirone E. David. He received his habilitation (highest German academic degree in medicine) in 2004 and was appointed as Full Professor (Heisenberg-Professor, assigned by the German Research Foundation (DFG)) at the University of Leipzig with a focus on cardiac metabolism in 2007. He has been the chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena since 2010. His primary interests are minimally invasive cardiac surgery and the mechanisms of the treatment of coronary artery disease. He is the member of many Cardiac Societies, is active in committee work and received several prizes and awards. He is active in enforcing academic/scientific competence in cardiac surgery and is currently the congress president of the upcoming national meeting of the German Society for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.
Mark La Meir, MD, PhD, is professor and Head of the Department Cardiac Surgery at the University Hospital Brussels, BE, and consultant at the Maastricht University Medical Center, NL. He earned his medical degree at the Free University Brussels in 1992 and his surgical degree in 1998. He received his PhD on “Hybrid Treatment of Atrial Fibrillation” at the Maastricht University Medical Center in 2012. He has a special interest in minimal invasive surgery and the treatment of arrhythmias.
Dr Patrick Perier
Dr Patrick Perier obtained his medical degree at the Paris V University in France. in 1982 he started his senior residency in the department of Professor Alain Carpentier at the Broussais Hospital where he became a staff member. In 1990 he joined the team of Herz and Gefass Klink (Bad Neustadt?Saale) in Germany to develop mitral valve surgery and started the development of the "Mitral Group". Over the last 15 years, he has refined the techniques of minimally invasive mitral valve repair.
Filip Rega graduated as MD at the KU Leuven, Leuven Belgium in 1998. He continued his training first in general surgery and then in cardiac surgery. In 2007 he was appointed as a consultant cardiac surgeon at the University Hospitals Leuven in Belgium. He was first trained as a congenital heart surgeon. Later on his career he also focused on valvular heart surgery in adults as well as grown up congenital heart surgery. From this expertise grew research in the understanding of the mechanobiology of the aortic root. Currently he is head of clinic at the department of cardiac surgery at the University Hospitals Leuven and full professor at the KU Leuven. He is also surgical director of the UZ Leuven Heart Transplant program.
Professor Marc Ruel
During his medical training he worked in a number of hospitals in France including the Marie Lannelongue Hospital, the Foch Hospital and the Broussais Hospital, where he became Consultant in 1987.
He worked for nearly 10 years with Professor Alain CARPENTIER, along with him he developed a Heart transplantation and LVAD program as well as mitral valve repair expertise.
He became Professor of Cardiovascular Surgery in 1989 in Paris University.
He moved from Broussais Hospital to Foch Hospital, where he became Chief in 1995.
He published new techniques for mitral valve repair (papillary muscle repositioning) and used extensively LVAD as bridge to transplantation.
Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub asked Professor Dreyfus to join him in 2000 and Professor Dreyfus moved in 2001 as Consultant in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at The Royal Brompton Hospital and Harefield NHS Trust in London and became as well Professor of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery at Imperial College London School of Medicine, NHLI (with a Chair). He also was Director of Transplantation and Director of Surgery for many years. He developed further mitral and tricuspid expertise along with publications as well as heart failure surgery.
Professor Vincent DOR asked him to take over in 2010 at Monaco.
He was Medical Director at the Monaco Cardio Thoracic Centre, from 2010 until 2018. His main clinical interest in Adult Cardiac Surgery concerns valve repairs mostly mitral and tricuspid. He also has expertise in aortic valve sparing and aortic arch surgery. Heart Failure Surgery with LVAD as destination therapy using the Jarvik 2000 was also a common practice. 600 mitral valve repairs have been performed since 2010. Acquisition of a Robot da Vinci Xi; many cases performed since 2016.
Since November 2018, Professor of Cardiac Surgery at Institut Mutualiste Montsouris, Paris, France; he performs mostly mitral valve repairs and HOCM surgery
Since May 2022, Professor of cardiac Surgery at Hopital Europeen Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; he performs mostly mitral valve repairs and HOCM surgery
He also teaches in the past 18 years valve repair surgery, in a course named Master of Valve
Repair regularly held in London and then in Monaco. He also has an active role the Mitral Conclave held every other year in New York by Dr D.Adams since its beginning and has been sitting on the Program Committee for several years .
He also attends as speaker most of major International Meetings such as; AATS, EACTS, ESC, Mitral Conclave, ACC. He publishes on a regular basis in scientific journals such as The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and in The Journal of The American College of Cardiology.
Member of ATTS, STS, EACTS, ESC.
He has some wide experience and interest in training surgeons in China, in India and Africa
Virtual International Faculty
Hans-Joachim Schaefers - Germany
Steve Bolling - USA
Maral Ouzounian - Canada
Marc Gillinov - USA