James Quintessenza, MD

Dr. Quintessenza is the co-director of the Heart Institute and chief of cardiovascular surgery at Johns Hopkins All Childrens Hospital. He originally joined the hospital staff in 1988, where he developed and refined complex neonatal heart surgery and led the congenital heart program for many years. He was one of the cardiothoracic surgeons who performed the hospitals first pediatric heart transplant in 1995. He previously served as medical director of the Heart Institute from 2012-2015. Dr. Quintessenza returned to Johns Hopkins All Childrens in 2020 after three years as chief and professor of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery at Kentucky Childrens Hospital and the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and as professor of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery at Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati.