Christian Kuntzen, MD

Niraj Desai, MD, is an adult and pediatric transplant surgeon and director of the Center for Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation at the Northwell Transplant Institute. Previously, he served as director of the kidney and pancreas transplant program at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and director of pancreas transplant at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri.Dr. Desai first found a passion for transplantation surgery while he was doing immunology research during medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. As transplant surgeons, we spend a lot of time being immunologists, fighting the immune system just enough to prevent rejection but also avoid infection. It's a fascinating field.After more than 14 years at Johns Hopkins, the opportunity to help build a program at a large health care system with an extensive patient base and geographic reach is what drew Dr. Desai to Northwell in 2024. There is so much potential here at Northwell for innovative care for the transplant recipient. We have a few notable advantages. Foremost is having so many top-notch specialists with years of full-time, real-world clinical experience all together under one roof. Our team has seen all the different things that might come up for a patient, he said. Yet for a large program with vast resources, we feel like a small, close-knit group of colleagues. I have immediate access to all the medical specialists as well as dieticians, social workers, pharmacists and administrators for evaluations, follow-up appointments and beyond. This embedded proximity and everyday communication is something the institute does really well.Frequent and open communication is not only a top priority at the institute, but also with outside partner physicians. One part of my job is doing outreach and meeting with nephrologists in person. Kidney patients see us at the Transplant Institute for about a year, but the relationship between our nephrologists and the patient's doctor continues as long as they're alive. We're in it for the long haul.

James Park, MD, is the co-director of the Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation at the Northwell Transplant Institute, and the chief of hepatology at North Shore University Hospital, Long Island Jewish Medical Center and Lenox Hill Hospital. He joined Northwell after 14 years at NYU Langone Health, where he was the director of transplant hepatology. During his internal medicine residency at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Dr. Park developed a keen interest in hepatology, particularly within Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities. I noticed a disproportionate number of Asians with late-stage liver diseases and liver cancer. They were often diagnosed late, some too late, he says. This realization led him to his calling. In 2022, Dr. Park established the Asian Liver Health Program at Northwell Health. Through outreach with local cultural organizations, free education and screenings, he works to dismantle the barriers to earlier diagnoses and treatment of liver cancer, cirrhosis and hepatitis B among the diverse and rapidly growing AAPI population. At the Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation, care is coordinated with multilingual and multidisciplinary specialists. Having everyone in the same location streamlines the process for patients and maximizes communication between doctors. At the Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation, we provide 360-degree care for each patient to ensure no stone is unturned in their immediate and ongoing treatment. Dr. Park also launched an Advanced Care Provider (ACP) fellowship in transplant hepatology to train the next generation of nurse practitioners and physician assistants. He is a strong believer in using ACPs to help address the shortage of providers in the field of hepatology. Educating ACPs and helping patients are privileges for which I am very grateful.

“I’m reminded on a daily basis of why I love this job.”Dr. Alan Hartman is the senior vice president and executive director of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at Northwell Health. In this pivotal position, Dr. Hartman is at the helm of one of New York’s busiest and most successful cardiothoracic departments, which includes programs at the Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital at North Shore University Hospital, Southside Hospital, Lenox Hill Hospital and Staten Island University Hospital.With more than 30 years of surgical experience and a stellar reputation for taking high risk cases others have turned down, Dr. Hartman is one of New York’s most sought after cardiac surgeons. He is routinely ranked by the New York State Department of Health, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and other organizations for having among the state’s best outcomes in cardiac surgery. His areas of expertise include aortic and mitral valve surgery, aortic aneurysm surgery, coronary artery surgery, pulmonary thromboembolic surgery and critical care. Dr. Hartman’s teams treat some of the largest numbers of aortic dissections in the region because of exceptional expertise and medical transport capabilities.Dr. Hartman realized his passion for medicine when he was in high school. A genuine love of science coupled with his yearning to help people in need led to afternoons volunteering at local hospitals. Around the same time, his father passed away at a young age, bolstering his determination to get into the medical field and make a profound difference in people’s lives.That difference is particularly evident in Dr. Hartman’s impactful role in opening the Heart Hospital in Manhasset, which offers the first and only full-service heart transplant program on Long Island and in Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. The Heart Hospital is a premier destination for quaternary cardiac care—from minimally invasive procedures to the most complex, life-changing heart transplants—and it exemplifies Dr. Hartman’s vision of making advanced cardiac care accessible to people in all the communities served by Northwell.Dr. Hartman is especially proud of the focused care and attention he and his teams offer patients and their families—before, during and after surgery. This is one of the reasons he helped create the Follow Your Heart program, which sends skilled medical professionals to patients’ homes to help with recovery after cardiac surgery and keep hospital readmissions down.Dr. Hartman is a professor and the Barbash Family endowed chair of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. He’s also a member of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the American College of Surgeons. He has continually received recognition on New York magazine’s Top Doctors list, and his significant publication contributions include areas such as pulmonary thromboembolic disease, repair of left atrial esophageal fistula and transcather aortic valve replacement (TAVR) outcomes. Dr. Hartman also participates in research and clinical trials to offer patients the latest cardiac treatment options.With a decades-long career of outstanding achievements and a continuous dedication to raising the bar in cardiac care, Dr. Hartman asserts the most gratifying thing about his job is, quite simply, knowing his patients.“Interacting with them, and getting to know them and their families, is what is most satisfying for me,” he says. He adds that while some in the medical field may become hardened after many years of practice, he feels just the opposite.“I think my colleagues and I have become more humbled,” Dr. Hartman says. “We’ll all need health care eventually. That’s why my driving principle has always been to treat everybody with the respect and due diligence that you’d want for yourself and your family.”