UAB Doctor Receives Lifetime Achievement Award

BIRMINGHAM, AL — A UAB doctor was recently honored for his longtime work with pediatric heart patients. Dr. James Kirlin was given the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pediatric Heart Transplant Society, UAB officials said.

Kirklin, who oversees data collection and analyses for the PHTS registry, is a professor in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery in the Heersink School of Medicine and currently holds the James K. Kirklin Endowed Chair of Cardiovascular Surgery.

Kirklin retired from clinical cardiac surgery in 2017 to focus his efforts on research.

In 1990, Kirklin and his colleagues at UAB established the Cardiac Transplant Research Database, which generated the first multi-institutional collaborative research in heart transplantation, producing numerous seminal publications over a 20-year span. In 1993, Kirklin and his UAB research group initiated the Pediatric Heart Transplant Study Group, which continues to lead the field in multi-institutional studies.

Kirklin was also the first author on the premier textbook on heart transplantation and co-author of the fourth edition of the Cardiac Surgery textbook. He has written more than 500 scientific publications.

PHTS is an international multidisciplinary, professional and collaborative organization dedicated to advancing the science and treatment of children through the journey of heart transplantation. In 2020, Kirklin also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation.

“This is a great honor to be given this lifetime achievement award,” Kirklin said. “A major part of my career has been dedicated to heart transplantation and pediatric cardiac surgery, and our research and clinical advances will only continue to grow from here.”

“Dr. James Kirklin is a world-renowned surgical scientist who has truly dedicated himself to the field of cardiothoracic surgery,” said the Fay Fletcher Kerner Endowed Chair Herbert Chen, M.D. “We are glad that Dr. Kirklin has called UAB Surgery home for over 40 years, and I look forward to his continued achievements.”