David Taggart

David Taggart qualified from Glasgow University in 1981. After clinical training in Glasgow, Paris, Newcastle and London (under Prof Sir Magdi Yacoub and Mr Christopher Lincoln at the Royal Brompton Hospital) he was appointed as Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford in 1995.

In 2004 he was appointed as Professor of Cardiovascular Surgery at the University of Oxford. He has two higher academic degrees (MD awarded with Honours 1989 and a PhD in 2000) and has conducted over 20 original scientific trials/studies and published over 300 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts with a high proportion with original research data. On an annual basis he gives between 10-15 major international lectures to Cardiac Surgery and Cardiology meetings.

His main clinical and research focus has been on coronary revascularization (CABG) and with specific reference to the evidence base of its superiority over stents (PCI). He has also published extensively on the use of multiple arterial grafts, off-pump CABG, quality assessment and the use of external stents for saphenous vein bypass grafts. He is the PI for the ART trial, a randomized of over 3100 patients allocated to single or bilateral ITA grafts and now being analysed after 15 years of follow-up.

He is the co-editor of two major textbooks of cardiac surgery (i) Core Concepts in Cardiac Surgery and (ii) State of the Art Surgical Myocardial Revascularization.

Along with Dr John Puskas he is the co-founder of the International Coronary Congress (ICC) and the International Society for Coronary Artery Surgery (ISCAS). He is also a Co-Director of the Masterclass for Off-Pump CABG.