California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) has long been on the forefront of advanced heart failure therapies.  CPMC was the first private medical center in the western United States to perform a heart transplant at the program’s inception in 1984.  Since then, we have performed more than 500 heart transplant operations. CPMC has a strong history of innovation in the field of mechanical circulatory support (MCS) since the beginning of the program.  The founding surgical director was integral in the design of early ventricular assist devices (VAD), setting the stage for the development of today’s third generation devices.  CPMC was the first center to support a patient with a biventricular MCS device while awaiting heart transplantation.  CPMC has been integral in multiple major clinical trials in MCS technology including the recent MOMENTUM 3 trial of the Heartmate 3 ventricular assist device. Building on this legacy, the program saw new growth and innovation starting in 2016 under the medical and surgical leadership of Michael Pham, MD and Brett Sheridan, MD.  The program has grown significantly in volume and has had sustained excellent patient outcomes in both transplantation and mechanical circulatory support.

The one-year ACGME accredited fellowship in Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiology was founded in 2020.   Our program is the first advanced subspecialty fellowship program in CPMC’s long history of cardiology education that began in 1959 with the inception of the fellowship in Cardiovascular Diseases.  Our program provides our fellows with comprehensive clinical training, rich academic resources, and a dedication to teaching from its faculty that will allow our trainees to develop strong foundations for practice and become leaders in the field.