Peyman Benharash, MD

Associate Professor-in-Residence of Surgery and Bioengineering
Director, UCLA Adult ECMO Program
Association Program Director, UCLA Thoracic Surgery Residency Program
Director, UCLA Cardiovascular Outcomes Research Laboratories
Division of Cardiac Surgery
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Dr. Peyman Benharash specializes in the treatment of acquired cardiac diseases in adults. He has an active practice that ranges from traditional cardiac surgeries to minimally invasive, hybrid, and catheter-based therapies for heart disease. He is the director of the Extracorporeal Life Support (ECMO) Program at UCLA and has made great strides in making this technology available widely throughout Southern California. More recently, he has brought minimal access arrhythmia surgery to UCLA, a method that reduces pain and blood loss while highly effective in the treatment of atrial fibrillation.
His research interests include health services research using national databases with a focus on cardiovascular outcomes. Dr. Benharash's laboratory is heavily involved with development of noninvasive physiologic sensors as well as the design of physics-based models for virtual surgery. Dr Benharash believes that patients will continue to greatly benefit from innovations that span multiple disciplines.
Dr. Benharash earned his undergraduate, graduate, and medical degrees from UCLA. He completed general surgery training at UCLA and spent time at Stanford University performing leading-edge research in stem cell therapies for cardiovascular applications. Dr. Benharash returned to UCLA to complete specialized training in cardiothoracic surgery and has remained on the faculty. He is the principal investigator on two major grants funded by the United States Department of Defense and is a co-investigator on several interdisciplinary projects for discovery in heart disease. Dr. Benharash has received a teaching award every year that he has served on the faculty at UCLA and was recently honored by the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA with the Kaiser-Permanente Award for Excellence in Education. He also received a 2015 UCLA Health Teaching Humanism Award. His work has been widely published and he is a member of numerous professional organizations, including the Society of University Surgeons and Society of Thoracic Surgeons. He is currently serving as the President of the California Society of Thoracic Surgeons.
Membership in Professional Societies:
Association for Academic Surgery (AAS)
Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS)
International Society for Minimally Invasive Cardiothoracic Surgery (ISMICS)
Southern California Chapter of the American College of Surgeons
Pacific Coast Surgical Association
Society of University Surgeons
Western Thoracic Surgical Association
Patient Stories
Thank you, Dr. Harari (and Dr. Benharash)