Heart

If you or a loved need a heart transplant, it’s reassuring to know that caring experts are ready to support you through the journey.

The team at University of Florida Health Shands Transplant Center has more than 30 years’ experience in advanced heart failure therapies and heart transplantation techniques. We focus on the unique needs of each patient, providing advanced medical treatments with sensitivity and concern.

UF Health difference

As a patient of UF Health Shands Transplant Center, you benefit from our three key features: experience, expertise and excellence.

• Experience. The cardiovascular surgeons at the UF Health Shands Transplant Center performed their first heart transplant in 1985. Since then, the collaborative heart transplant team has performed more than 1,130 heart transplants.
• Expertise. Our doctors conduct research and clinical trials to develop advanced heart transplant techniques that are not offered anywhere else. Our team is also a regional resource to physicians and other health care providers.

Heart transplant services

We offer heart transplantation services for children and adults. Our services include:

• Heart Failure. This program focuses on the treatment of patients with congestive heart failure.
• Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) Program. Led by Mustafa M. Ahmed, MD, this program uses state-of-the-art devices to assist the heart when waiting for transplantation or as a permanent solution. We are a Joint Commission Disease Specific certified VAD center .
• Heart transplant. This program combines the expertise of cardiothoracic surgeons and cardiologists to perform the transplant and to care for patients long after. Learn about preparing for a heart transplant and what to expect during and after surgery. 

Learn more

• View our program outcomes (pdf) from the SRTR website as last reported in July 2020.
• To learn more about our heart transplant services, contact 352.265.0751.