My name is Dr. Tom Beaver and I serve as the Grant and Shirle Herron Chair and as professor and chief of the division of cardiovascular surgery at the University of Florida College of Medicine. My duties as chief of the division are diverse, but two of my favorite roles within the job are helping to educate the next generation of cardiac surgeons and helping patients achieve their health goals through surgical innovation.

I received my undergraduate and medical degrees with honors from the University of Wisconsin and completed general surgery training in Colorado. I moved to the warmer University of Florida to complete my cardiothoracic surgery training in 1998 and later a masters of public health with a focus on health policy. I am proud to have served our country as a member of The United States Army Reserve Medical Corps from 1991-2006. In 2004, I served in Tikrit, Iraq and Asadabad, Afghanistan and retired as a lieutenant colonel.

I was inspired to become a cardiovascular surgeon because of my family’s experiences with heart disease, beginning with my grandfather’s heart attack when I was a child, and my father and two uncles having coronary artery bypass surgery. I treat my patients like family and have devoted my career to making surgery safer and easier for patients through minimally invasive techniques and improved perioperative management. I specialize in minimally invasive surgery to treat atrial fibrillation, aortic aneurysm, and aortic and mitral valves – including transcatheter valve repair and replacement (TAVR) and thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR). I am currently the co-principal investigator in the U.S. for an international trial of hybrid ablation to manage inappropriate sinus tachycardia, or IST.

One aspect of being a surgeon in an academic medical center like UF Health is the opportunity to advance patient care through clinical research; I have more than 180 publications with research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the State of Florida and multiple industry trials evaluating valves, kidney protection and stent grafting for thoracic aneurysms.

One of my greatest accomplishments in life is being a father and husband. I love spending time with my lovely wife and two amazing kids on the weekends, often running as a family, including our Golden Doodle “Rocky.”