At Baptist Health Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute, a major milestone in cardiac care was reached less than a year after launching a new robotic cardiac surgery program. World-renowned Makoto Hashimoto, M.D., a cardiac surgeon with Baptist Health Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute and professor and director of robotic cardiac surgery at Florida International University (FIU) Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, and Tom C. Nguyen, M.D., chief medical executive of Baptist Heart & Vascular Care, director of minimally invasive surgery, and professor and chair of the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences at FIU, recently completed the Institute’s 100th robotic heart surgery, only months after the program began in January 2025.
Also, within this short amount of time, Baptist Health is now a dedicated training center for surgeons around the country wanting to learn robotic surgery. The rapid achievement positions Baptist Health as Florida’s highest-volume center for robotic cardiac surgery and one of the fastest-growing programs of its kind in the United States. It also signals a significant shift in how complex heart procedures are being performed, with minimally invasive, robot-assisted techniques moving from the margins toward the mainstream.
Dr. Hashimoto was recruited from Japan to establish and direct the program at Baptist Health Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute and FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. His arrival brings decades of global expertise to South Florida and accelerates the region’s adoption of advanced surgical technologies.
“Robotic heart surgery is very attractive as a surgical approach,” Dr. Hashimoto says. “Even the word ‘robot’ sounds like the future. But it has not yet been widely adopted worldwide. Less than one percent of heart surgeries globally are performed robotically. Despite that, there is clear demand here in Miami, from patients and from cardiologists, which is why we were able to grow at this pace in our first year.”…