About this Speaker
Juan P. Umaña is a cardiovascular surgeon, who currently occupies the position of Chief Medical Officer at the Fundacion Cardioinfantil (FCI) in Bogota, Colombia. His passion for innovation and excellence led to the invention and patenting of a device to repair the mitral valve, which is widely used in Europe, North- and South America. After twelve years of training at two of the top medical institutions in the US, Columbia University and Stanford University, Juan Pablo returned to Colombia in 2002 to work at the FCl where he was named chief of cardiovascular surgery. Result-driven and a strong believer in teamwork, he fostered the creation of patient registries for continuous improvement, as well as state-of-the-art programs such as transcatheter heart-valve therapies, valve repair, and heart transplantation. As Chief Medical Officer he has been a strong ally of the government, advocating the role private institutions need to play to guarantee the future of the Colombian health care system.
Abstract
Juan Pablo is passionate about innovation and excellence, through which he has found a way of changing people's lives. By returning to Colombia after twelve years of training at Columbia University and Stanford University, and heading one of the most prestigious cardiovascular institutions in Colombia, he found a way to help more than one patient at a time, by changing institutional culture and influencing health care policy, thereby benefiting patients throughout the entire Colombian healthcare system as well as in the Caribbean and Andean region, thanks to the creation of outreach international programs.
He returned to Colombia in 2002 after twelve years, which involved a research fellowship in liver transplantation in Birmingham, England, followed by six years of general surgery training at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City. During that time, he devoted a year to research of the mitral valve, developing a method to repair it without the need for open heart surgery. This resulted in a patent at the U.S. Patent Office and subsequent mass production of the device which is currently used worldwide to repair the mitral valve on a beating heart. After his general surgery training, he went to Stanford University Medical Center for three years of cardiothoracic surgery training.
Juan Pablo is passionate about social causes and excellence clinical results.