Hazim J. Safi

Hazim J. Safi (born 1946) is a physician and surgeon who is well known for his research in the surgical treatment of aortic disease. Safi and his colleagues at Baylor College of Medicine were the first to identify variables associated with early death and postoperative complications in patients undergoing thoracoabdominal aortic operations. Safi now serves as professor of cardiothoracic surgery, and founding chair at McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, TX.

Education Born in Baghdad, Safi was raised within the city limits by his mother. He graduated valedictorian from his high school, before completing a master's degree at Baghdad University College of Medicine in 1970. In 1975, he completed a surgical residency at the Medical City Teaching Hospital in Baghdad, followed by a surgical fellowship at St. James Hospital in London, England in 1977. While attending a conference in England, Safi was introduced to Michael DeBakey, who extended Safi an invitation to work alongside him at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. In 1981 and 1983, Safi completed two surgical fellowships at Baylor.

Early career Prior to joining the surgical faculty team at Baylor, Safi developed an interest in the aorta, specifically the causes and treatments of thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysms (TAAAs). While completing his fellowship at Baylor, Safi worked in the early 1980s as a protégé under Dr. Stanley Crawford https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6231006/ with the goal of advancing surgical care and post-operative recovery for patients with TAAA.

Thoracic Aortic Disease In the late 80s and throughout the 90s, Safi worked to identify significant influences in pre-operative evaluations and treatments, as well as modifications in operations and post-operations, to improve patient outcomes after surgical repair of the aorta. He and his team identified myocardial infarction, respiratory failure, renal failure, and stroke as the primary causes of death and morbidity after thoracic aorta surgery, indicating that the assessment of the function of those organs is essential to increasing the probability of survival after surgery. His work showcased that a history of smoking and the presence of chronic pulmonary disease are common predictors of post-surgery respiratory failure among patients who undergo surgery for the descending thoracic and thoracoabdominal aorta, requiring a lateral thoracotomy.

In 2008, Safi participated in a study that reviewed factors correlated with post-surgery outcomes for the repair of the thoracic aorta by stent graft and offered suggestions for treatment. The paper provided evidence that open repair of the descending thoracic aorta does not require reoperation and remains durable for over 13 years after treatment.

Scholarly work and contributions to science Safi has authored and co-authored over 30 book chapters and has published nearly 300 articles in medical journals. According to a meta-research paper by Stanford Medicine researcher and scientist John Ioannidis, Safi was one of the world's top 2% contributors to the field of science in 2020. This analysis was reviewed and annotated by the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford. Counting self-citations, the paper indicated that Safi's work had been cited 16,244 times in 9,941 distinct papers, and calculated that his h-index was 71 as of 2020. One of Safi's articles, published in 1993 in the Journal of Vascular Surgery, has been cited over 1,000 times as of 2020 and provides evidence supporting best practices for improving 30-day survival and outcomes for patients receiving surgery to repair the aorta.

Selected works