Dr. David H. Adams

David H. Adams, MD
Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis
Professor and Chairman
Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery
The Mount Sinai Medical Center
New York, NY 10029
212-659-6820

Dr. David H. Adams is the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at The Mount Sinai Medical Center. Dr. Adams is a leader in the field of mitral valve reconstruction and heart valve surgery. As Program Director of Mount Sinai's Mitral Valve Repair Reference Center, he has set national benchmarks for the specialty with a repair success rate of more than 99 percent in patients with degenerative mitral valve disease, while running one of the largest and most respected valve programs in the United States.

Dr. Adams' impact extends far beyond his own operating room. As the holder of multiple patents, he carries out a prodigious research agenda to develop new techniques and tools to push frontiers in complex valve surgeries and make procedures safer for patients. He is the co-inventor of two mitral valve annuloplasty repair rings (the Carpentier-Edwards Physio II Annuloplasty Ring and the Carpentier-McCarthy-Adams IMR ETlogix Ring), and inventor of a new tricuspid annuloplasty ring (Medtronic Tri-Ad Tricuspid Annuloplasty Ring) and has royalty agreements with Edwards Lifesciences and Medtronic. Dr. Adams has performed the first successful implantations of the IMR ETlogix, Physio II, and Tri-Ad Rings in the United States. All of these rings are now used extensively throughout the world.

He is a co-author with Professor Alain Carpentier of the internationally acclaimed textbook Carpentier's Reconstructive Valve Surgery, and is a Co-Director of the annual American College of Cardiology/American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) Heart Valve Summit and the Director of the new biennial AATS Mitral Conclave, the largest meeting focused on mitral valve disease held in the world.

Dr. Adams is a much sought after speaker both nationally and internationally and has given over 300 invited lectures and operated on patients in multiple teaching courses throughout the world. His desire to share knowledge and collaborate with other cardiac surgeons led him to develop one of the world’s largest video libraries of techniques in valve reconstruction. He is the author of over 200 publications, and is recognized as a leading surgeon scientist and medical expert, serving on the Editorial Boards of several medical journals, including Cardiology and The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. He is currently the Co-Editor of Seminars in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. Dr. Adams has served in an advisory capacity to essentially all industry leaders in cardiovascular surgery. He also serves as the National Co-Principal Investigator of the United States FDA pivotal trial of the Medtronic CoreValve Transcatheter Aortic Valve replacement device.

Dr. David Adams and Professor Alain Carpentier performing mitral valve surgery.

Dr. Adams’ clinical interests include all aspects of heart valve surgery, with a special emphasis on mitral valve reconstruction and multiple valve surgery. His major research interests include outcomes related to mitral valve repair, novel mitral valve repair strategies, and percutaneous valve replacement. Past research honors include the Alton Ochsner Research Scholarship from the American Association for Thoracic Surgery and the Paul Dudley White Research Fellowship from the American Heart Association. He has also received honorary Professorships from Capital University in Beijing and Keio University in Tokyo. In 2009, he received the New York American Heart Association Award for Achievement in Cardiovascular Science and Medicine.

Dr. Adams received his undergraduate and medical education at Duke University and completed his internship and residency in general and cardiothoracic surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital and at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Adams followed that with a fellowship in London under Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub. In addition, he completed a two-year research fellowship under Professor Morris Karnovsky in the Department of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. He later served at Brigham and Women's Hospital as the Associate Chief of Cardiac Surgery. He has been Chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at The Mount Sinai Medical Center since 2002.

Curriculum Vitae: View PDF

Dr. Adams is the co-inventor of the Edwards Lifesciences' Carpentier-McCarthy-Adams IMR ETlogix Annuloplasty Ring, the Carpentier-Edwards Physio II ring, and the Medtronic Tri-Ad Adams Tricuspid Annuloplasty Ring. The Mount Sinai School of Medicine receives royalties from Edwards Lifesciences and Medtronic in connection with the sale of these products. Dr. Adams and Mount Sinai DO NOT receive any royalties when the devices are implanted in patients at Mount Sinai.