Cardiothoracic Anesthesia Team

A Highly Specialized Anesthesia Team

In the Heart Center of Arkansas Children's Hospital, a highly specialized team of anesthesiologists and supporting staff provide the expertise necessary to complete complex, lengthy open-heart surgeries. These physicians specialize entirely in congenital heart defects. This expertise is critical to success because individual defects result in unique responses to anesthesia.

If someone comes to us for surgery to treat adult congenital heart disease, we want the procedure to go as smoothly as possible. That’s why for each cardiac surgery patient, our team performs a full anesthesia evaluation looking for cardiac problems that may result from anesthesia given during the procedure.

"When we’re successful in our jobs, it means there’s one more child who gets to have a childhood. One more family that gets to have a child. One more adult who got to grow up. That’s why we can put in an 18-hour day, be home for an hour and be happy when we get called back in to do a surgery or a transplant," says Michael L. Schmitz, M.D., Director of Pediatric Cardiothoracic Anesthesia at ACH.

If this is your child's first heart operation, please read the Parent's Guide to Heart Surgery.

	Michael L. Schmitz - M.D. Director of Pediatric Cardiothoracic Anesthesia
Medical School:	University of California at San Francisco Medical Center 1986
Residency 1:	Pediatrics 1989 Harbor-UCLA Medical Center
Residency 2:	Anesthesia 1991 University of Pennsylvania Medical Center
Fellowship 1:	Pediatric Anesthesia/Cardiac Anesthesia/Crit. Care 1992 The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Research Activities:	Pediatric anesthesiology, pediatric pain management, pediatric cardiovascular anesthesiology

	Sana Ullah - M.D.
Medical School:	University of Dundee, Scotland
Internship:	Internal Medicine 1999 Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital
Residency 1:	Anesthesiology 1996 Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital
Residency 2:	Anesthesiology 1999 Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital
Fellowship 1:	Pediatric Cardiac Anesthesia 2002 Arkansas Children’s Hospital
Fellowship 2:	Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology 2001 Cleveland Clinic Foundation

	William Watkins - M.D.
Medical School:	University of Tennessee-Memphis 1988
Internship:	Transitional 1989 University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Residency 1:	Anesthesiology 1992 University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

Luis Zabala - M.D.

Medical School:

Central University Venezuela 1998

Internship:

Transitional 2000
Tufts New England Medical Center

Residency 1:

Anesthesiology 2003
New England Medical Center

Fellowship 1:

Anesthesiology 2004
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia/University of Pennsylvania