Prof. Jaishankar Raman
Cardiothoracic Surgeon
Dr Raman is currently Clinical Director & Lead of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Townsville University Hospital.
He was tasked with revamping this busy regional center in Jan,2024, in an effort to improve culture of work, clinical outcomes with the aim of achieving re-accreditation for training in Cardiothoracic Surgery. He is a Professor of Surgery at the University of Melbourne, Deakin University, James Cook University, in Australia. In the US, he is also an adjunct Professor of Surgery at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Grainger School of Engineering. He completed Cardiothoracic Surgery training in 1997 in Melbourne & his PhD in 2003 through the University of Melbourne. He spent 17 years in the US as an academic cardiothoracic surgeon before returning to Australia for family reasons in 2019. He is an active consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at Townsville University Hospital, with attachments at Austin Health & St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, Warringal Private, St Vincent’s Private & Epworth Private Hospitals. He is an active clinician-researcher with clinical roles in cardiothoracic surgery, Intensive Care Management & special expertise in the management of end stage heart failure patients. He is an academic Cardiothoracic Surgeon, with interest in heart failure therapy, complex heart surgery, minimally invasive cardiac surgery; he has significant experience in heart failure surgery & heart & lung transplantation. He has conducted and participated in 5 Multi Center worldwide RCTs. He served as Director of Cardiac Surgery at Rush University Medical Center from 2011-16 & Director of Adult Cardiac Surgery at the University of Chicago from 2002-11. He was also director of cardiothoracic surgical research at the University of Chicago from 2002-11 & at Rush University Medical Center from 2011-16. While at the Oregon Health & Science University between 2016-19, Dr Raman served as co-chair of Quality for the Knight Cardiovascular Institute.
In his role as Clinical Director Townsville University Hospital, the largest regional center in North Queensland, he has had to navigate the challenges of providing care for remote patients with constrained resources. North Queensland provides a diverse disease profile with over 25% of workload being patients of Indigenous & First Nations’ origin. In addition to providing complex cardiac care to these patients, the role requires building systems of outreach and screening for rheumatic heart disease, diabetes, heart failure & care of complex cardiac patients.
Contribution to field of research: Research over the past 30 years, spans bench to bedside work on a variety of innovations, including Ventricular containment in the management of terminal heart failure, Surgical Ablation in the treatment of Atrial Arrhythmias, Rigid Plate Fixation of the sternum and ribs, Dynamic Chemical Tissue Assessment using Multi-modal Spectroscopy, Arterial Grafting in Coronary Artery Surgery, Mechanisms of Endothelial dysfunction in Valvular Heart Disease. The publication overview includes over 340 peer-reviewed research publications (Research Interest Score 4302 with over 10,600 citations on Google Scholar), 2 Theses, 2 Text Books as Editor. Google Scholar – H-Index 53. He holds over 30 patents in new devices for heart failure, epicardial treatment of functional mitral regurgitation, nanotechnology, topical therapy, miniaturized epicardial pacemakers.
Examples from last 5 years of research impact:
Multi-modal Spectroscopy & Chemical Imaging in the Assessment of Biological Tissue: This work started in 2012 as a basic science collaboration with University of Illinois’ Beckman Institute. This platform utilizes spectroscopy of different types, including Raman Spectroscopy, Near-InfraRed, Mid-IR & Discrete Frequency IR along with Computation to build capabilities for live tissue imaging and Point-of-Care assessment of human tissue – from a histological, metabolic and morphological perspective. This is a collaborative effort through the Spectromix lab and will transform conventional pathology and metabolic evaluation into live modalities. This lab now has access to frozen biological tissues at multiple locations around Australia. A recent completed study evaluated the role of vibrational spectroscopy in the detection and delineation of Cardiac Amyloid with collaboration between UIUC, Cedars Sinai Medical Center and the Mayo Clinic.
Sternal & Rib Plate Fixation – Dr Raman was involved with plate fixation of the sternum after cardiac surgery while it was developed as a technique at the University of Chicago in the early 2000s. Since then, three worldwide multi-center Randomized Controlled Trials have been performed with this approach to improve sternal healing and reduce complications after heart surgery. This has dramatically improved outcomes after heart surgery, with worldwide adoption, and the evidence behind this technique promoting this as an Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) guideline, with multiple publications in the surgical literature. Rib fixation was a great corollary and has gained traction in mini-thoracotomy procedures as well as in the treatment of rib trauma. This has also improved adoption of minimally invasive techniques in cardiac surgery.
Improved Techniques in the Delivery of ECMO: The iterative innovations in this treatment modality that treats critically ill patients with mechanical support – has many facets. Less anti-coagulation, smaller cannulae and prompt institution have many implications in saving lives. Dr Raman published the first large series involving low anticoagulant use in VA-ECMO. Since then, he was worked with bio-engineering groups at Monash University and the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne to show smaller arterial cannulae are safe in clinical and simulation studies.
Expanded Valve preserving options in Mitral & Tricuspid Valve Repair using the PED (Peeling, Endarterectomy & Decortication). This utilizes elements of reconstructive techniques used in rheumatic valvular heart disease and has extended the repair capabilities in a variety of conditions.
Acute Kidney Injury in Heart Surgery: The multi-disciplinary approach to this problem has involved extensive use of large animal experimental models developed at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and the University of Melbourne. These chronically instrumented sheep have been studied after undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass, and various therapeutic manipulations. Mechanistic insights into the nature of AKI and brain injury after heart surgery are being gleaned.
Effects of Climate Change on Critical Illnesses. This utilized collaboration with CSIRO Oceans & Atmospheres and the ANZICS. The first forays looked at ICU admissions across Australia over two decades and identifying patterns of correlation with the El Nino Southern Oscillation.
Evaluation of a new LVAD & RVAD: This involves the use of a sheep model to evaluate the function of new bi-Ventricular Assist Device, called VENTRII developed by Cardiobionic, a startup with Australian engineers, conceptualized by a leading cardiac surgeon from India. He is also working on a new Catheter based pump being developed by FloAid.
Research Support: AMRF grant, SERTA grants – Queensland, UIUC internal funds, National Heart Foundation, NIH (National Institutes of Health, USA), AHA (American Heart Association), Industry
International Standing: Invited guest speaker at multiple international meetings in Cardiology and Cardiothoracic Surgery. Coordinator of multi-national efforts with USA & India – on clinical & translational research projects in Spectroscopy, Arterial Grafting in CABG, Valve Repair, Heart Failure Research. Regular proctor and overseas faculty at Live Surgery training symposia in Coimbatore, Bengaluru, Chennai & New Delhi, India.
Community Engagement: Part of MEDD & Hope for Hearts – online medical education efforts. Coordinator of Spectromix Lab and Spectromix Pty Ltd. Member of East Timor Hearts – an effort to facilitate care of patients from Timor Leste with Rheumatic Heart Disease. Regular visits to Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Education, Bengaluru, India – for charity surgical work. Ongoing Commitment & Engagement to improve outcomes with intervention on Rheumatic Heart Disease patients at Tenwek Hospital, Tenwek, Kenya (the largest cardiac hospital in sub-Saharan Africa).
Peer Review: Associate Editor of PLoS One, Heart Lung & Circulation, Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery.