Sanjiv Kaul, MD, director of the Knight Cardiovascular Institute at Oregon Health and Science University, announced he’ll be stepping down from his leadership role by the end of this year following the disassembly of the university’s heart transplant team a month ago. Kaul is expected to remain at OHSU, but will focus solely on research.
According to the Lund Report, Kaul will shift to his research role starting Jan. 1, 2019, at which point OHSU School of Medicine dean Sharon Anderson will take his place as interim director. OHSU announced it would be suspending its heart transplant program back in August after three of its four team members resigned, but what was initially projected to be a two-week suspension became, at least for the foreseeable future, permanent.
Anderson said she would work with top cardiology directors to rebuild the heart transplant program—the only one in the state—and OHSU president and CEO Danny Jacobs told the Lund Report he’s committed to reopening the program.
“Everything’s on the table,” he said. “[The] process takes time because we want to recruit the best people.”
OHSU’s heart transplant program was three decades old. Officials haven’t released a timeline or any other projections for rebuilding the program.
Read more from the Lund Report:
After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.