Dr. Drazner, associate professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern, has been a key member of the heart transplant team for nine years, specializing in treating patients with congestive heart failure and caring for patients before and after transplantation. He also has been instrumental in achieving UT Southwestern's tremendous survival rates for heart-transplant patients, which consistently rank in the top 10 in the nation and are the best in Texas.

Dr. Drazner succeeds Dr. Clyde Yancy, who served as medical director since 1993. The Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplantation program is a key component of UT Southwestern's Heart, Lung and Vascular Center, a collaborative effort between UT Southwestern faculty and community physicians who unite to bring their clinical and surgical expertise to patients needing cardiac, pulmonary or vascular care.

"Dr. Drazner is a talented, compassionate and highly skilled clinician," said Dr. John Warner, assistant professor of internal medicine, director of the Heart, Lung and Vascular Center. "He has been an integral part of our team for almost a decade now and we are extremely pleased that he has accepted this position. We look forward to his leadership."

Dr. Drazner's clinical expertise includes a range of adult heart diseases, including congestive heart failure, treatment prior to and following heart transplantation, and critical care cardiology. He is listed in Best Doctors in America for clinical excellence in congestive heart failure and transplantation.

In his new role, Dr. Drazner said he hopes to continue the established excellence of the Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplantation Program at UT Southwestern and further enhance its clinical initiatives.

"I'm very excited about this opportunity and I look forward to building upon the tradition of excellence already in place," Dr. Drazner said. "My goal is to expand our clinical initiatives establishing UT Southwestern as a premier destination in the country for the care of patients with heart failure and those who require cardiac transplantation."

He added, "My other central goal is to further develop our clinical and basic research initiatives in these two areas. The wonderful scientific atmosphere at UT Southwestern offers us an almost unparalleled opportunity to be in the forefront of traditional research to develop novel diagnostic tests and therapeutic advances in the fields of heart failure and heart transplantation."

Dr. Drazner earned his medical degree from Washington University Medical School in St. Louis in 1989. From there, he entered the internal medicine residency program at UT Southwestern where he was named chief resident. From 1993 to 1996, he completed a fellowship in cardiology at Duke University School of Medicine.

He then completed a 15-month fellowship dedicated to the management of patients with congestive heart failure and cardiac transplantation at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He subsequently received a Master of Science in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health.

In 1997, he was recruited to UT Southwestern and a short time later, he founded and served as the medical director of the Parkland Memorial Hospital Congestive Heart Failure Clinic, which has cared for more than 1,000 patients since its inception.

Dr. Drazner also is a member of the United Network for Organ Sharing Thoracic Regional Review Board and was formerly a member of the Disease-Specific Care Heart Failure Expert Panel for the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. He is also an investigator for the Dallas Heart Study and an associate editor of the American Heart Journal.

Community
Email This Article
Comment On This Article

Related Links
UT Southwestern Medical Center
Hospital and Medical News at InternDaily.com

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News