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Who

Adams is chairman of the cardiothoracic surgery department at Mount Sinai and one of the city's top heart surgeons.

Backstory

Adams attended Duke as an undergrad and med school student, before moving to Boston to complete his residency and fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He stayed at Brigham and Women's Hospital for nearly a decade—earning a rep as one of the most skilled heart surgeons in the country—before decamping to New York in 2002 after Mount Sinai coughed up the big bucks to make it worth his while. He works closely with Dr. Valentin Fuster, who heads up Mount Sinai Heart and ropes in donations while Adams does his work in the operating room.

Of note

The chairman of Mount Sinai's department of cardiothoracic surgery (a position endowed by mega-donors Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis), Adams is one of the city's foremost heart surgeons, and particularly renowned for his mitral valve reconstruction work, a procedure he performs hundreds of times each year. (It involves using the patient's own tissue—or that of an animal—to fix flaws in a heart valve.) He's also a prolific researcher; he's published more than 150 articles and holds two patents, including one for something called the Carpentier-McCarthy-Adams IMR ETlogix Annuloplasty Ring. (It treats asymmetric dilatation, in case you're wondering.)

For the record

Mount Sinai is rated third on New York's "Best Hospitals" list when it comes to cardiac care. Adams's big competition in town is the team at New York-Presbyterian led by Craig Smith, and Cornell's Wayne Isom.

Personal

Adams and his wife Mary Ann live on Fifth Avenue in the '90s, an easy walk from Mount Sinai.

Off hours

Golf Digest has him tied for 154th place in their annual ranking of the "250 Best Golfing Docs" in America.