Georg M. Wieselthaler, MD

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Get to know Cardiothoracic Surgeon Dr. Georg M. Wieselthaler, who serves patients in San Francisco, California.

Dr. Wieselthaler, a heart and lung surgeon, is the Director of the Heart Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support Program at the UCSF Heart and Vascular Center in San Francisco, California. He is one of the world’s leading experts in mechanical circulatory support for patients with end-stage heart failure and has performed and supervised more than 350 heart transplants. He also has extensive expertise in implanting ventricular assist devices (VADs), which help failing hearts pump blood.

The UCSF Heart and Vascular Center is home to a world-class team of cardiologists, heart surgeons, vascular surgeons, interventional radiologists and other specialists. They provide the highest-quality care for all heart conditions, from the most common to the rare and complex. They focus on prevention and on encouraging heart-healthy lifestyles, but also offer the most state-of-the-art treatments available. They also conduct a wide range of research projects and are committed to improving heart care on all fronts: prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Among Dr. Wieselthaler’s areas of clinical expertise include: acute aortic dissection repair, aortic valve repair & replacement, arrhythmia, coronary artery bypass grafting, end-stage heart failure, heart transplantation, minimally invasive cardiac surgery, minimally invasive valve surgery, mitral valve repair & replacement, and myocardial revascularization surgery.

Alongside his clinical role, he serves as a Professor of Surgery within the Division of Adult Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. 

A native of Austria, Dr. Wieselthaler earned his medical degree at the Medical University of Vienna, where he completed residency and surgical training. He completed advanced training in transplantation at the Vienna heart transplant and lung transplant programs, and completed advanced fellowships as staff surgeon within the Department of Cardiac Surgery in St. Pölten Hospital, Austria.

In 1984, while still in medical school, he became involved in the Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) Program at the University of Vienna and began working in the Biomedical Laboratory on the development of the driving unit for the “New Vienna Total Artificial Heart (TAH)”. After graduation, Dr. Wieselthaler became aware of the advantages of rotary blood pumps and organized the world’s first “International Workshop(s) on Rotary Blood Pumps” in the years 1988 and 1991 in Austria. Out of these meetings, the International Society for Rotary Blood Pumps was founded in 1992 with Dr. Wieselthaler acting as Secretary General for the organization for many years.

He and his colleague, Dr. Heinrich Schima, a biomedical engineer, then investigated and developed miniaturized centrifugal pumps over 15 years in the Biomedical Laboratories of the University of Vienna. Dr. Wieselthaler, thereafter, became primary surgeon at the Medical University of Vienna where implanted various types of VAD systems and supervised patient care. He developed extensive expertise with pulsatile systems like Novacor LVAS and has had one of the longest supported patients on the device (over 4 1/2  years). He also developed the Thoratec paracorporeal and implantable VADs. One of his patients was supported for more than 3 years on the world’s first full implantable VAD in the Arrow LionHeart CUPS Trial.

In 1998, Dr. Wieselthaler implanted the world’s first implantable, miniaturized axial flow pumps, the MicroMed-DeBakey VAD and he has since implanted more than 80 patients with this device. Many of his leading scientific papers originated his early experience with the world’s first nonpulsatile pump, articles still cited by colleagues. He also served as  Principal Investigator and implanted the world’s first implantable, magnetically suspended centrifugal left ventricular assist device (LVAD), the “TERUMO DuraHeart LVAD”.

A member of many national and international medical societies, Dr. Wieselthaler is President-elect of the International Society for Rotary Blood Pumps. He is on the Board of the European Society for Artificial Organs and former president of the Austrian Society for Implantology and Tissue Integrated Prosthesis. In April 2011, he was named Director of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation.

He has been involved in the development of ventricular assist pumps and a total artificial heart. He has trained surgeons worldwide in implantation techniques and the use of VADs, and he has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Cardiothoracic surgery is the field of medicine involved in the surgical treatment of organs inside the thorax. Cardiothoracic surgeons are medical doctors who specialize in surgical procedures inside the thorax, which may involve the heart, lungs, esophagus, and other organs in the chest. Alongside performing surgery, they also diagnose and treat diseases of these organs. 

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