Behind the knife, the Surgery Podcast, where we take a behind the scenes intimate look at surgery

from leaders in the field. Behind the Surgery Podcasts, Surgery Podcast, where we take a behind-the-scenes intimate look at surgery from leaders behind the knife. We are greatly pleased today to have Dr.

Danny Chu, he's a professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery in the Department of CT

surgery at the University of Pittsburgh.

He's also the director of cardiac surgery at the VA in the Pittsburgh health care system.

Dr. Chu, welcome.

Thank you. Thank you

Thank you very much for having me on your show

So for all our listeners this is actually the first time we have a cardiac surgeon coming on BTK so it's actually quite an honor for us and you know our listeners range from anyone from

medical students in training up to residents to staff all across multiple

specialties. So for all our listeners we'd like to start with how do you get to where you

are and what's your daily practice like these days? Sure. I went to undergraduate. I was a mechanical engineer at Cal Tech in

Pasadena, California and I went to medical school at Tufts University School of Medicine and originally I had thought about doing emergency medicine and actually changed my mind several times from emergency medicine to trauma surgery.

That was sort of my, you know, my choice at that time in medical school.

It's kind of interesting where your mentors really matter.

Because my interest in trauma surgery,

I actually decided to do my journal surgery training

at UCSD.

At that time, Dave Hoyt was the director of trauma there and the vice chair and

UCSD had a really, you know, a strong trauma surgery presence.

So I did general surgery training at UC San Diego

and after three years I decided to pursue basic science

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