Lishan Aklog, MD, is the Chief of Cardiovascular Surgery and Chair of the Cardiovascular Center at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center’s Heart & Lung Institute. He is board certified in surgery and cardiothoracic surgery.
After graduating magna cum laude in physics from Harvard College, he continued on to Harvard Medical School where he received his medical degree, also with honors. He completed his residency training in general and cardiothoracic surgery at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital, serving as chief resident at each institution. He then spent an additional year in Europe, as the American Association of Thoracic Surgery Fellow, where he received additional training in mitral valve repair and aortic root surgery under the tutelage of two world-renowned cardiac surgeons at Harefield Hospital in London and L’Hôpital Broussais in Paris.
He returned from Europe to join the Harvard faculty as an attending surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He was then recruited to Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City where he served as Associate Chief of Cardiac Surgery. In 2006 he was recruited to Phoenix to serve in his current role at the newly established Heart and Lung Institute.
Throughout his career Dr. Aklog has been a leader in innovative approaches to the care of patients with heart disease – including mitral valve repair, atrial fibrillation surgery, off-pump coronary bypass using arterial grafts, minimally-invasive and robotic surgery and pulmonary embolism. He has published numerous journal articles and book chapters, and has been invited to lecture and operate around the world. Dr. Aklog has held leadership positions in national and international organizations, including the Board of Directors of the International Society of Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery. He has also served on numerous advisory boards and several government committees. He has a keen interest in health care policy and has advised members of congress on health care.
One of Dr. Aklog’s strong passions is patient education both traditional (talks, live events) and web based. He is the past chairman and continues to serve on the medical advisory board for EmpowHER, a web-based media company focused on women’s health and wellness. He also serves on the advisory board for StopAfib.org, a web resource for patients with atrial fibrillation.
Dr. Aklog has received numerous awards and is a perennial honoree in Castle Connolly’s America’s Top Doctors. He has been recently elected to the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS), a highly prestigious honor.
Dr. Aklog was born in Ethiopia and, as a young teenager, he and his sisters fled the political violence ravaging his country leaving their parents behind. Two and a half years after arriving in this country, at the age of 15, he enrolled as a freshman at Harvard where he spent the two next decades. He lives in Scottsdale with his wife and two children.
For more information on Dr. Aklog, please call St. Joseph’s ResourceLink at 1-877-602-4111. .
View videos of Dr. Aklog explaining various heart conditions and surgeries.
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