Dr. Richard J. Shemin, the Robert and Kelly Day professor and chief of cardiothoracic surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and executive vice-chairman of surgery and co-director of the Cardiovascular Center at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, was recently elected director-at-large of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons' (STS) Board of Directors at the 46th Annual Meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
An active member of the Society, Shemin has served on a variety STS Workforces including the Workforce on Evidence-Based Surgery, the Workforce on Health Policy, Reform, and Advocacy, and was chairman of the Workforce on Adult Cardiac Surgery from 2005 - 2009. He has been a member of the Society's Board of Directors since 2009.
The Society of Thoracic Surgeons is a non-profit organization representing almost 6,000 surgeons worldwide who provide heart, lung, esophageal, and other surgical procedures of the chest. Its mission is to help cardiothoracic surgeons serve patients better.
One of the country's leading cardiothoracic surgeons, Shemin has a national reputation performing valvular repair and is an expert in minimally invasive robotic surgery.
Prior to joining UCLA in 2007, he served as professor and chairman of cardiothoracic surgery and vice-chairman of surgery at the Boston University School of Medicine. He also served as co-director of the Cardiovascular Center at Boston Medical Center.
Shemin received his medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine and completed his general surgery residency at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, where he led the team performing the first cardiac transplant in New England in 1984. He was a clinical associate in cardiac surgery at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health and completed training in cardiothoracic surgery at New York University Medical Center.