Redmond Burke, MD

Dr. Redmond P. Burke (born November 4, 1958) is a congenital heart surgeon, software developer, author, and founder of The Congenital Heart Institute at Miami Children’s Hospital, and Arnold Palmer Hospital, in Miami and Orlando Florida. He starred in the ABC pilot television show The Miracle Workers, a Dreamworks SKG and Renegade 83 production.

Biography

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Redmond Burke was born in Honolulu, Hawaii [1] to a US Navy flight navigator, Redmond Joseph Burke, and his wife Claire Lorraine Burke, both from San Francisco, California. He is married to Kim Burke, and they have three daughters.

Burke and his three younger sisters grew up in Cupertino, California. He was educated in public schools - John F. Kennedy Junior High School, and Monta Vista High School, where he co-captained the varsity wrestling and Championship football teams, and won the Outstanding Wrestler award at the Central Coast Section Championships in 1976.[2] Influential coaches included Patrick Lovell, and Duane “Buck” Shore.

College 1976-1980

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Accepted at Yale, Brown and Dartmouth Universities, he attended Stanford University, majoring in Human Biology. He walked on and made the Varsity Football Team as a freshman under NFL Hall of Fame Coach Jack Christiansen. He co-captained the Varsity Rugby Team, touring New Zealand and Canada, where he played wing forward. He graduated with Honors and Distinction, with election to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. Distinguished classmates included Pete Higgins, an executive at Microsoft, and Timothy Draper, founder of the venture firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Notable professors included Nobel Laureates Linus C. Pauling (Chemistry, 1954 and Peace, 1962) and Arthur L. Schawlow (Physics, 1981).

Medical School 1980-1984

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Burke attended medical school at Harvard University from 1980 to 1984. Influential instructors included Hardy Hendren, Paul Buttenweiser and Judah Folkman, who often asked students, “what was your last original idea?”

General Surgery Training 1985-1989

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Redmond was selected for General Surgical Residency Training at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, under then Surgeon in Chief, John A. Mannick MD, Mosely Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. The Brigham training philosophy was “see one, do one, teach one.” Notable instructors included Nobel Prize Winner Joseph Murray, who performed the world’s first kidney transplant. In 1989, after completing his General Surgery training at the Brigham, and in preparation for his cardiac training, Burke spent a year as a research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the Spectroscopy Laboratory, under Michael S. Feld, PhD. He investigated the use of laser induced tissue fluorescence spectroscopy to diagnose rejection in transplanted cardiac tissue.

Cardiothoracic Surgery Training 1990-1992

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Burke was selected for Cardiac Surgery Training at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The program had a history of aggressive innovation, beginning with the pioneering work of Dwight Harken, who performed the first successful open heart surgeries, removing shell fragments from the hearts of WWII soldiers. Jack Collins, Lawrence Cohn, and David Sugarbaker, taught their Brigham residents precise techniques for each operation.

Congenital Heart Surgery Training 1992

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Burke spent six months as the Chief Resident in Pediatric Cardiac Surgery under Professor Aldo Castaneda, and attending surgeons, Richard Jonas, John Mayer, and Frank Hanley. When Dr Hanley accepted the position of Chief of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at the University of California in San Francisco, the group offered Burke his position, and he joined the Boston Children’s Hospital attending staff in 1992, becoming an Instructor in Surgery at the Harvard Medical School.

Boston Children’s Hospital 1992-1995

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Castaneda encouraged Burke to develop a research interest. He explored the possibility of using endoscopic surgical techniques for congenital heart surgery, designing instruments and techniques in the laboratory. He began clinical applications in 1993, subsequently performing a series of surgical firsts, including the world’s first endoscopic vascular ring division, diaphragm placation, and thoracic duct ligation. Burke and Craig Lillehei, an attending pediatric surgeon, also performed the first three pediatric Heart-Lung Transplantations in New England, with the help of colleagues from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital including Malcolm Decamp, and Sari Aranki.. In early 1995, Dr Castaneda retired, and Burke was invited to interview for a position as Chief of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at Miami Children’s Hospital in Miami, Florida.

ACHIEVEMENTS IN PEDIATRIC CARDIAC SURGERY PIONEERED BY/ INSTITUTION REFERENCE SOURCE
First Minimally Invasive Repair of Patent Ductus Arteriosus in the United States

1993

Burke

at Boston Children’s Hospital

Burke RP, Wernovsky G, van der Velde M, Hansen D, Castaneda AR: Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery for congenital heart disease. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 1995 Mar;109(3):499-507; discussion 508
World’s First Video-Assisted Thoracoscopic Vascular Ring Division

1993

Burke

at Boston Children’s Hospital

Burke RP, Chang AC: Video-assisted thoracoscopic division of a vascular ring in an infant: a new operative technique. J Card Surg. 1993 Sep;8(5):537-40

World’s first video-assisted thoracoscopic thoracic duct ligation

1994

Burke

at Boston Children’s Hospital

Mihalka J, Burrows FA, Burke RP, Javorski JJ: One-lung ventilation during video-assisted thoracoscopic ligation of a thoracic duct in a three-year-old child. J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth. 1994 Oct;8(5):559-62

Miami Children’s Hospital 1995

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At the age of 36, Burke became the Chief of Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgery at Miami Children’s Hospital. Building on lessons learned in Boston and Silicon Valley, his program was designed around two key principles: 1. Reduce the trauma of care for each patient over their lifetime. 2. Use information technology to improve medical outcomes.

Reducing Surgical Trauma

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In an effort to reduce cumulative therapeutic trauma, the Miami team unified the efforts of cardiac surgeons and interventional cardiologists to reduce therapeutic trauma, attempting to develop less invasive treatments for a broad range of congenital heart defects. Burke and Zahn published a series of unique hybrid approaches, where the surgeons operated in the catheterization laboratory, and the cardiologists performed interventions in the operating room. Many of these procedures utilized the video assisted thoracoscopic techniques Burke developed in Boston.{Readers digest, December, 1998} Burke and associate surgeon Robert Hannan worked with their Director of Perfusion, Jorge W. Ojito, to develop less traumatic cardiopulmonary bypass technique. They also designed a streamlined Cardiopulmonary Support circuit, allowing critically ill patients to be transported by plane, helicopter or ambulance over great distances on full heart lung bypass.

ACHIEVEMENTS IN PEDIATRIC CARDIAC SURGERY PIONEERED BY/ INSTITUTION REFERENCE SOURCE
World’s First Fontan Operation Without Heart-Lung Bypass

1997

Burke

at Miami Children's Hospital

Burke RP, Jacobs JP, Ashraf MH, Aldousany A, Chang AC: Extracardiac Fontan operation without cardiopulmonary bypass. Ann Thorac Surg. 1997 Apr;63(4):1175-7
World’s First Video-Assisted Surgery/Interventional Catheterization

1997

Burke and Zahn

at Miami Children's Hospital

Hannan RL, Miyaji K, Burke RP, Zahn EM: Endovascular stent graft treatment of a pulmonary artery pseudoaneurysm. Ann Thorac Surg. 2001 Feb;71(2):727-9
World’s First Endoscopic Left Ventricular Thrombectomy

1998

Burke

at Miami Children's Hospital

Mazza IL, Jacobs JP, Aldousany A, Chang AC, Burke RP: Video-assisted cardioscopy for left ventricular thrombectomy in a child. Ann Thorac Surg. 1998 Jul;66(1):248-50
The USA’s First Tracheal Homograft Transplant

1998

Burke and Jacobs

at Miami Children's Hospital

Jacobs JP, Quintessenza JA, Andrews T, Burke RP, Spektor Z, Delius RE, Smith RJ, Elliott MJ, Herberhold C: Tracheal allograft reconstruction: the total North American and worldwide pediatric experiences. Ann Thorac Surg. 1999 Sep;68(3):1043-51; discussion 1052
World’s First Minimally Invasive Diaphragm Surgery

1998

Burke

at Miami Children's Hospital

Van Smith C, Jacobs JP, Burke RP: Minimally invasive diaphragm plication in an infant. Ann Thorac Surg. 1998 Mar;65(3):842-4
First Ross Operation in an Infant Jehovah’s Witness Patient Without Blood

1999

Burke, Hannan, Miyaji, and Ojito

at Miami Children's Hospital

Miyaji K, Hannan RL, Ojito JW, White JA, Burke RP: The Ross operation in a Jehovah's Witness: a paradigm for heart surgery in children without transfusion. Ann Thorac Surg. 2000 Mar;69(3):935-7
World’s First Rapid Airborne Cardiopulmonary Bypass Rescue Team

2000

Burke, Hannan, and Ojito

at Miami Children's Hospital

Ojito JW, McConaghey T, Jacobs JP, Burke RP: Rapid pediatric cardiopulmonary support system. J Extra Corpor Technol. 1997 Jun;29(2):96-9
First Endoscopic Repair of Subaortic Membrane

2000

Burke

at Miami Children’s Hospital

Miyaji K, Hannan RL, Ojito JW, White JA, Burke RP: Minimally invasive resection of congenital subaortic stenosis. Ann Thorac Surg. 2000 Apr;69(4):1273-5
First Single Ventricle Palliation for Conjoined Twins

2005

Burke and Tirrota

at Miami Children’s Hospital

Tirotta CF, Lagueruela R, Munro HM, Zahn EM, Lopez L, Burke RP: Anesthetic management of conjoined twins presenting for palliative open-heart surgery. Anesth Analg. 2005 Jul;101(1):44-7, table of contents
Novel Repair for Anomalous Coronary Artery

2006

Burke

at Miami Children’s Hospital

Lopez L, Mercer-Rosa L, Zahn EM, Altman NR, Dubois R, Burke RP: The "hinge-twist" technique for anomalous origin of the left coronary artery. Ann Thorac Surg. 2006 Aug;82(2):e19-21

Information Technology

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When Burke arrived in Miami in 1995, medical information technology was limited. He hired Jeffrey A. White to act as a technology advisor, working with the heart team to find and develop novel applications of information technology to improve medical outcomes. This collaboration resulted in the first relational database for congenital heart surgery, the first web based information system for a medical team, and the first web based reporting of medical outcomes in real time.

ACHIEVEMENTS PIONEERED BY/ INSTITUTION REFERENCE
First Relational Congenital Heart Database

1995

Burke, Jacobs J, Jacobs H, and White

at Miami Children's Hospital

CardioAccess.com
World’s First Palm Application for Pediatric Heart Surgery

2001

White and Burke

at Miami Children's Hospital

Bender, JP. “Miami Children's Hospital introduces new technology.” South Florida Business Journal 20 Apr 2001

The New York Times
National Public Radio

World’s First Internet Based Information Management System for a Congenital Heart Team

2002

White and Burke

At Miami Children’s Hospital

Herper, M. "Saving Lives With PDAs." Forbes 23 Apr 02

Burke RP, White JA: Internet rounds: a congenital heart surgeon's Web log. Semin Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2004 Fall;16(3):283-92

First Real Time Web based Medical Outcomes Reporting

2002

Burke, White and Walsh

At Miami Children’s Hospital

pediatricheartsurgery.com
First Voice Recognition Database for an Operating Room

2006

Burke and White

At Miami Children’s Hospital

Robb, Drew. “Now We’re Talking: Speech technologies are moving far beyond call centers.” Computerworld 02 Oct 06

The Congenital Heart Institute

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In 2002, the Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando, Florida lost their congenital heart program. Burke initiated meetings with administrator Janet Livingstone, CEO John Hillenmeyer, and Medical Director Mark Swanson, proposing that the Miami Children’s Cardiac Team help rebuild the Arnold Palmer Heart Program. The Congenital Heart Institute at Miami Children’s Hospital and Arnold Palmer Hospital was created, with Redmond Burke and Evan Zahn acting as Co-Directors.

Television

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Burke was cast as the host of the ABC network television reality program The Miracle Workers, which first aired March 6, 2006. The program followed patients through complex medical treatments, showing the technical and emotional aspects of modern medical care. The show strove to match people with severely debilitating illnesses with elite doctors and innovative treatments that are not widely available. Critics questioned the ethics of a show that "give out good medicine as a prize." [3]

Burke has appeared on CNN (1996), Good Morning America (1997, 2006), The Today Show (1997), CNN Entertainment (1996), Extra (2006) and Entertainment Tonight (1996) to describe novel medical achievements.

Honors

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Blue Angels Flight
Best Doctors in America
Who’s Who in America
Valor Award, American Diabetes Association

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pediatricheartsurgery.com
CardioAccess.com
Teges.com
Miami Children's Hospital

References

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category:cardiology category:american cardiologists