Heart Talk
A presentation with the dell children’s medical center heart team
Learn about the wonders of the human heart with Heart Surgeon Dr. Carlos Mery and Critical Care Intensivist Dr. Sai Surapa Raju and other members of the Heart Center team! Get the chance to attend this informative talk and experience hands-on activities like heart dissection, a stethoscope demo, and more!
English presentation: 11:15am
Entry comes with General Admission
Charla del Corazón
Una presentación con Dell Children’s Medical Center Heart Team
Conozca las maravillas del corazón con el cirujano cardíaco Dr. Carlos Mery y el intensivista de cuidados críticos Dr. Sai Surapa Raju y otros miembros del equipo del Heart Center. ¡Tenga la oportunidad de asistir a esta charla informativa y experimentar actividades prácticas como disección del corazón, una demostración de estetoscopio y más!
Presentación de Español: 12:00pm
La entrada viene con la admisión general al museo
About Dr. Mery
Dr. Mery is a congenital heart surgeon at Dell Children’s Medical Center and Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin. He is an Associate Professor of Surgery and Perioperative Care and the Associate Chief of Pediatric and Congenital Cardiothoracic Surgery. He serves as the Surgical Director for the Single Ventricle Program, Coronary Anomalies Program, and Heart Failure, VAD, and Transplant Program, and is part of the Heart Center Leadership Steering Committee. Dr. Mery specializes in the surgical management of children and adults with congenital heart disease, with particular interest in patients with single-ventricle disease and coronary artery anomalies. His academic interests include outcomes research, value-based health care transformation, and the early development of medical technology.
Dr. Mery joined Dell Children’s in 2018 as part of a team to help build a new congenital cardiac program. This initiative included the creation, essentially from scratch, of an integrated Heart Center with recruitment of dedicated personnel (congenital heart surgeons, intensivists, anesthesiologists, cardiologists, perfusionists, nurses, psychologists, social workers, etc.), creation of a dedicated cardiac care unit and 2 pediatric cardiac operating rooms, and the development of clinical programs. The Heart Center now employs more than 400 FTEs and performs approximately 400 cardiac surgical operations per year. Prior to the creation of the program, the hospital was designated by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons as a 1-star program (adjusted outcomes after congenital heart surgery significantly worse than the national average). Within 4 years, the program was recognized as having perioperative outcomes significantly better (38% better) than the national average, a designation shared by only 10% of congenital cardiac programs in the country. Since the creation of the heart transplant program in 2020, the Heart Center has performed a total of 29 heart transplants.
As part of the development of the Heart Center, Dr. Mery led the creation of the Health Transformation and Design Program, a Heart Center-wide initiative that seeks to improve and redesign the care of patients with congenital heart disease using principles of patient-centered and value-based health care. This program encompasses all the outcomes measurement and registries, quality improvement, clinical research, data integration, and clinical innovation initiatives for the entire Heart Center under the same umbrella. The program, which Dr. Mery directs, employs 20 FTEs including outcomes specialists, quality specialists, research coordinators, post-doctoral fellows, research faculty, a data architect, and a systems designer. Among other things, the program has developed novel initiatives to understand the lifelong journey of patients with congenital heart disease using quantitative and qualitative methods and initiatives to measure long-term outcomes that are meaningful to patients and families.
Dr. Mery received his medical degree from Tecnológico De Monterrey, Mexico and an MPH from Harvard School of Public Health. He completed his general surgery residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School and clinical fellowships in cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Virginia and congenital heart surgery at Texas Children’s Hospital / Baylor College of Medicine. He also completed research fellowships at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and at the Instituto Nacional de la Nutrición in Mexico, and a surgical innovation fellowship at Stanford University. He is currently pursuing an executive MBA from The University of Texas at Dallas. Dr. Mery has written approximately 200 journal articles or book chapters and is the editor of a review book in cardiothoracic surgery and a handbook in congenital heart disease.
On a personal note, Dr. Mery enjoys spending time with his wife and 3 children in Austin and Texas Hill Country.