You will join Ochsner Medical Center as a Cardiac Critical Care specialist at a pivotal moment in the program's growth. The cardiovascular intensive care unit is evolving from a shared model to a dedicated 24/7 service, driven by increasing case volumes and rising patient acuity that demand specialized expertise. Your arrival will help strengthen what is already recognized as one of the region's premier heart programs, ranked #1 in Louisiana for 12 consecutive years.
Your practice will center on the 10-bed Cardiovascular ICU, a specialized section within the larger 34-bed Surgical ICU that serves as the clinical home for the South's most complex cardiac surgical patients. This is not a service managing routine post-operative recoveries. The unit's third-highest CMS surgical case mix index in the country reflects the extraordinary complexity of patients you will care for: heart and lung transplant recipients, patients supported by ECMO and ventricular assist devices, complex open-heart surgical cases involving multiple valves and aortic procedures, and high-risk vascular patients requiring thoracic endovascular repairs.
Ochsner Medical Center serves as the cardiac referral hub for Louisiana and the broader Gulf South region, with a service area extending across southern Louisiana and into Mississippi. The cardiovascular program's national rankings in heart failure, cardiac procedures, and transplantation draw patients who often cannot receive this level of care elsewhere in the region. As Tenet left the area after Hurricane Katrina, Ochsner absorbed three community hospitals (St. Anne, St. Bernard, and St. Charles), expanding access to advanced cardiac care across underserved populations who previously lacked these resources.
The community need for your subspecialty expertise is clear and growing. The program performs 550+ cardiopulmonary bypass cases annually, with plans to increase to 750 cases over the next two years as an additional cardiac surgeon joins the team. Heart and lung transplant volumes continue rising year over year, with 40-50 transplants annually. The ECMO program manages 20-25 patients per year, also trending upward. This growth trajectory creates the need to geographically separate the CV-ICU from the Surgical ICU, allowing two physicians to provide dedicated coverage at night: one in the CV-ICU and another in the Surgical ICU.
Your clinical responsibilities will blend intensive care expertise with your anesthesiology training in ways that few positions can offer. During your CV-ICU weeks, you will manage patients across the full spectrum of cardiovascular critical illness: transplant recipients navigating rejection and infection, mechanical circulatory support patients requiring hourly hemodynamic optimization, complex cardiac surgical patients with multi-organ dysfunction, and high-risk vascular patients with aortic pathology.
The schedule offers flexibility based on your career interests and desired practice mix:
Your academic contributions will be essential and expected. You will participate actively in the anesthesiology residency program and multiple fellowship programs (Adult Cardiac Anesthesia, Pulmonary Critical Care, Neurocritical Care), with robust teaching opportunities in both the ICU and operating room. The department includes 70 anesthesiologists, 100 CRNAs, and more than 45 house staff, creating a rich educational environment. Administrative or quality improvement leadership would be welcomed, as the current Cardiac Critical Care director could use collaborative support in building the program. Research interests are encouraged and supported by a prolific research infrastructure, though publication is not a pressure or requirement.
You will work closely with Dr. Shaun Yockelson, the established Cardiac Critical Care physician who has cultivated an exceptional collaborative relationship with the cardiac surgical team. This partnership between intensivists and surgeons is characterized by daily joint rounding, mutual respect for complementary expertise, and shared decision-making that elevates patient care. The cardiac surgeons trust the critical care team's ventilator management and hemodynamic strategies, while intensivists welcome surgical perspective on post-operative trajectories. This culture eliminates the finger-pointing and territorial tensions that plague many academic centers.
Dr. David Broussard serves as Department Chair of Anesthesia, overseeing a physician-led organization that values clinical excellence, educational mission, and work-life balance. You will also collaborate closely with the cardiac surgical team led by Dr. Patrick Parrino and Dr. Aditya Bansal, along with four advanced practice providers who are being integrated into 24/7 coverage to support the expanding service.
This position offers what many cardiac intensivists seek but rarely find: the opportunity to practice genuinely sub-specialized cardiac critical care at the highest acuity level, within a collaborative and supportive culture, backed by institutional commitment to growth, and balanced by schedule flexibility that prevents burnout. You will care for patients who cannot receive this level of care anywhere else in the region, while teaching the next generation and helping shape the future structure of a nationally recognized program.