Joseph W. Turek, MD, PhD

Dr. Turek is the Associate Professor and Chief of Department of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, Duke University and Executive Co-Director, Duke Children’s Pediatric and Congenital Heart Center. He graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in biochemistry and received his MD and PhD (Pharmacology) degrees in a joint training program at the University of Illinois (Chicago). There he was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society. He completed his general and thoracic surgery training at Duke University prior to embarking on his congenital heart training. In this regard, he was a visiting congenital heart surgery fellow at Texas Children’s Hospital and finished his accredited pediatric heart surgery training at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In 2011, Dr. Turek joined the faculty at the University of Iowa, rising to Division Chief of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery in 2012. In 2017, he was recruited back to Duke University as Chief of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery.

Dr. Turek founded and serves as Executive Co-Director of the Duke Children’s Pediatric & Congenital Heart Center. He is an active member of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, Society of Thoracic Surgeons, Southern Thoracic Surgical Association, Congenital Heart Surgeons’ Society and International Society for Minimally Invasive Cardiothoracic Surgery, serving on several committees and reviewing for all of the associated journals.

Dr. Turek’s research efforts span from basic to translational to clinical. His extramurally funded basic science work includes projects elucidating novel signaling cascades involved in Marfan syndrome-induced aortopathy and cardiomyopathy as well as tolerance induction to allogeneic heart transplantation using co-transplantation of cultured thymic tissue.

Editorial Board (Cardiac Surgery)
Terms of Appointment: April 2019 - March 2022;  April 2022 - March 2024