Council Position: board member
Mr Zacharias is a Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon at the Lancashire Cardiac Centre in Blackpool and past President and Chairman of the British and Irish society of Minimally invasive cardiac surgeons (BISMICS).
Mr Zacharias completed his medical training at St John’s Medical College, Bangalore, India. He trained in cardio-thoracic surgery at James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough, The Royal Brompton Hospital, London and The Freeman Hospital, Newcastle. He did an observer post and fellowship in cardiac surgery at The Cleveland Clinic Ohio, USA, The OLV Clinic, Aalst, Belgium, and St Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver, Canada. He was appointed to the consultant post in 2004 and was Clinical Director and Head of department from 2010 to 2015.
His interests lie in developing minimally invasive endoscopic techniques in cardio-thoracic surgery. He has successfully developed a programme of endoscopic mitral and tricuspid valve surgery and atrial fibrillation ablation and published on its reduced length of hospital stay. He was involved in the UK Mini Mitral trial and has presented the results both nationally and internationally. Blackpool was one of the first centres to adopt endoscopic conduit harvesting of saphenous vein and radial artery for coronary artery surgery in the UK and has published excellent 10 year results. Since 2015 nearly all isolated aortic valve replacements have been done by an anterior right thoracotomy (ART) or endoscopic approach and in excess of 160 cases have been completed with improved outcomes using sutured valves. Mr Zacharias acts as a proctor for endoscopic cardiac surgery and has successfully proctored many surgeons and teams across UK and Europe. He has edited a book on Endoscopic Cardiac Surgery with Springer and is the secretary to the global Endoscopic Cardiac Surgeons Club.