Jennifer Christel Romano, MD

Jennifer C. Romano, M.D., M.S. is the Herbert Sloan Collegiate Professor of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Michigan Medical School, specializing in surgery for congenital and pediatric acquired heart disease. Her practice encompasses all elements of pediatric cardiac surgery with a focus on neonatal surgery and hybrid interventions. She serves as the Program Director for the University of Michigan ACGME Congenital Heart Surgery Residency and the non-ACGME Congenital Heart Surgery Fellowship. The University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital Congenital Heart Center is internationally recognized as a leader in the care of patients with congenital heart disease (CHD), performing 500-600 open-heart and 1000 total operations each year. Dr. Romano is also active nationally as a Director for the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, Congenital Deputy Editor for Annals of Thoracic Surgery, member of the Board of Directors for the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, and as Treasurer-elect for the Congenital Heart Surgeons Society.

Congenital heart surgery; ECMO [Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygentation] for pediatric cardiac failure; surgical critical care.

University of Michigan Health participates with most health insurance plans.

Dr. Romano’s research interests include the intersection between surgical and catheter based interventions for CHD including hybrid procedures, long-term quality of life and neurocognitive outcomes for patients with CHD, national database management, health policy issues relating to CHD, and improvements in cardiac intensive care management. Through the NIH sponsored Pediatric Heart Network, Dr. Romano is one of the Study Chairs of the multi-institutional COMPASS trial, the first multi-institutional randomized clinical trial comparing surgical shunts to catheter based ductal stenting for neonates with ductal dependent pulmonary blood flow. She has a strong interest in quality improvement initiatives both at our institutional and nationally.