Chitwood to lead international society

By WAYNE QUESENBERRY/Staff

The 5,600 members of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons elected Wytheville native Dr. W. Randolph Chitwood Jr. as their new president last month. The group includes surgeons, researchers and allied health professionals worldwide.
“I feel like I’ve got a lot to do,” Chitwood stated Wednesday morning by phone from his office at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C. “It was an honor to be elected. This is a very active, dynamic society.”
Dr. Chitwood has been involved with the Society of Thoracic Surgeons throughout his career. He is senior associate vice chancellor for health sciences and director of the East Carolina Heart Institute at East Carolina University.
Thoracic surgeons treat diseases of the chest including coronary artery disease; cancers of the lung, esophagus and chest wall; abnormalities of the great vessels and heart valves; birth defects of the chest and heart; tumors in the organs contained in the chest cavity; and transplants of the heart and lungs.
“We’re trying to move things together,” Chitwood noted. “The number of heart surgeons is declining . . . We’re rallying new people to become cardiothoracic surgeons. The society also is working on government policy issues and developing additional clinical guidelines and increase efforts for better patient care.”
While the society has its annual membership meeting once a year, Chitwood said, the organization holds seminars on new techniques and conducts workshops all year long.
A graduate of George Wythe High School, Chitwood earned his degree from Hampden-Sydney College. He completed his surgical residency at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.
Chitwood then went to the East Carolina University School of Medicine as full professor of surgery and started the cardiac surgery program there in 1984. He served as chairman of the department of surgery from 1995 to 2003.
Chitwood is a founder of the East Carolina Heart Institute that is undergoing a $200 million building project. He has been a pioneer in developing new technology for minimally invasive heart surgery.
His Robotic Surgical Center has trained more than 350 surgeons from around the world in the robotic surgical techniques Chitwood developed. He also pioneered robotic valve repairs using the da Vinci system and in 2000 used it to perform the first complete mitral valve repair in North America.
Chitwood was the lead investigator of the FDA robotic mitral valve trials. He has special expertise in complex valvular surgery including mitral repair and aortic valve and cardiac rhythm surgery.
He is the son of Ruth Anne Reed Chitwood of Wytheville and the late Dr. W. Randolph Chitwood Sr. He is married to the former Tamara Whitt, also a Wytheville native, and they have two children, Anne Chitwood Merchant and Randolph Chitwood III.
Chitwood attributes much of his success to the values and traditions he learned growing up in Wythe County. His grandfather, father and uncle were all physicians in Southwest Virginia and his sister is a physician at Virginia Tech.
Wayne Quesenberry can be reached at 228-6611 or .