Mark S. Slaughter completed his Bachelors of Science in Civil Engineering from Purdue University in 1982 and graduated from Indiana University School of Medicine in 1986. He completed his general surgery residency at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University in 1991 and his Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery fellowship at the University of Minnesota in 1994. Dr. Slaughter is board certified by the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Thoracic Surgery.
Dr. Slaughter is the Professor and Chair of the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery and was recently named the Jewish Hospital Distinguished Chair in Cardiovascular Surgery. In addition, he serves as the Director of the Heart Transplant and Mechanical Assist Device program at the University of Louisville Health and Jewish Hospital and is the Medical Director of the University of Louisville Cardiovascular Innovation Institute. Dr. Slaughter is a clinician-scientist whose broad research focus is to understand the mechanisms of cardiac dysfunction and pathological remodeling in heart failure. He also has a particular interest in device-based therapy for cardiac disease, including mechanical circulatory support (MCS) devices, ventricular assist devices (VAD), and total artificial hearts (TAH).
Mark S. Slaughter is a visiting professor at various universities and has been a guest speaker at numerous national and international conferences. He is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles in medical journals and is the Editor-in-Chief of the ASAIO Journal. In August 2021, Dr. Slaughter and the cardiothoracic surgical team at UofL Health – Jewish Hospital implanted the Aeson® bioprosthetic total artificial heart into the first female patient in the world. The new device is intended as a bridge to a heart organ transplant, which is part of an Early Feasibility Study (EFS) sponsored by CARMAT, a French medical device company.