Carl L. Backer MD Named CT Division Head

Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago recently appointed Carl L. Backer, MD, to head the division of Cardiovascular-Thoracic Surgery. Backer received his medical degree from the Mayo Medical School in 1980 and finished residency programs in general surgery and cardiothoracic surgery at Northwestern University Medical School. He completed his fellowship in pediatric cardiovascular-thoracic surgery at Children’s Memorial Hospital under the supervision of the late Farouk Idriss, MD. Backer and Idriss performed the first heart transplant at Children's Memorial Hospital on May 13, 1988. 

Backer is a member of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, the Congenital Heart Surgeons’ Society, and the International Society for Heart & Lung Transplantation. He is also the chair of the Medical Advisory Board of the Children’s Heart Foundation. For the past five years, Backer has served as the surgical director of the Heart Transplant Program at Children’s Memorial Hospital.

In addition to heart transplantation, his expertise includes neonatal heart surgery, arrhythmia surgery and tracheal surgery. During his career, he has authored 179 peer-reviewed articles and 70 book chapters. Backer served as co-editor of the second and third editions of the comprehensive textbook, Pediatric Cardiac Surgery. Backer is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and the Journal of Cardiac Surgery. He is editor of the Congenital Portal section of CTSNet, an internet-based resource for education and scientific information. Since 2001 he has been professor of surgery at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and the A.C. Buehler Professor of Surgery.