Dr. Hirokuni Arai is the Professor Emeritus of Tokyo Medical and Dental University and President of Hokushin General Hospital in Nagano Japan. He completed his general surgery training and his cardiothoracic fellowship training at Tokyo Medical and Dental University and its affiliated hospitals. From 1989 to 1991, he was a Research Fellow in the Department of Surgery at St. Louis University, in St. Louis, USA, under Professor D. Glenn Pennington. From 1994 to 2000, he was the Director of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Hokushin General Hospital. From 2007 to 2022, he served as the Chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at Tokyo Medical and Dental University. He has been in his current position at the Tokyo Medical and Dental University since April of this year.
He is the Program Co-Director of AATS/JATS Mitral Conclave 2022 in Japan and is currently Society President of Japanese Association for Coronary Artery Surgery (JACAS) to host International Coronary Congress 2022 in Tokyo, Board of Directors of ISCAS/ICC, and Program Co-Chair of ISMICS 2022. He was also past Congress President of Japanese Association for Thoracic Surgery (JATS 2018) which is the counterpart of AATS in Japan, past Congress president of Japanese Association for Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery (J-MICS 2019), and past Congress President of Japanese Society for Heart Valve Disease 2019.