Ajay S. Vaidya

Dr. Ajay Vaidya is the Associate Medical Director of Heart Failure and Heart Transplant at the University of Southern California. Dr. Vaidya completed his undergraduate education at Northwestern University with a BS in Social Policy, and then went on to his receive a combined MD/MPH degree from Tufts University School of Medicine where he was selected to the Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) Honor Society. He completed his Internal Medicine Residency at the University of California, San Francisco where he was selected into the Health Systems and Leadership Area of Distinction. Dr. Vaidya was then selected to the Clinical Investigator Track for his general cardiology fellowship at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, and then completed his Advanced Heart Failure, Transplant Cardiology, and Mechanical Circulatory Support fellowship at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He has been a member of the faculty for the Division of Cardiology at the Keck School of Medicine since 2018. In addition to serving as the Associate Medical Director of Heart Failure and Heart Transplant, Dr. Vaidya serves in multiple leadership roles and committees across the Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Keck Medical Center, and the Keck School of Medicine including his work in the Equity and Representation Working Group for the Center for Gender and Equity in Medicine and Science (GEMS).

Dr. Vaidya has a large clinical practice of patients referred for evaluation and treatment of advanced heart failure, cardiomyopathies, cardiac amyloidosis, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, cardiogenic shock, and patients in need of heart transplant or mechanical circulatory support. He is board certified in internal medicine, cardiovascular medicine, advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology, and echocardiography.

His research interests include outcomes research for heart failure, antibody desensitization, cardiogenic shock, and heart transplantation, and he is a principal investigator for several national clinical trials

studying novel heart failure and heart transplant therapeutics including post-acute myocardial infarction related cardiomyopathies, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, non-invasive heart transplant rejection surveillance, and physics-based artificial intelligence solutions for heart failure. Dr. Vaidya is also the recipient of a nearly $5M grant as lead principal investigator of the prestigious “Judge John A. Houston Artificial Intelligence Technology for Heart Monitoring Project”. He has authored multiple peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and abstracts and leads his own research lab here at the University of Southern California.

In addition, Dr. Vaidya has a strong interest in medical education and has served as the Associate Program Director of the Cardiovascular Medicine Fellowship since 2019. He is also the Course Director for Keck Medical Center Cardiology rotations for the medical students, internal medicine residency, anesthesia residency, family medicine residency, and the general cardiology fellowship programs. Dr. Vaidya was also chosen by the American College of Cardiology to serve on the Heart Failure Questions Committee for the Collaborative Maintenance Pathway.

He enjoys travelling, time with family and friends, and is an avid sports fan. He grew up in Oklahoma and is a passionate OU Sooners fan – Boomer Sooner!

• Southern California Magazine, Los Angeles Times: Southern California Rising Stars, Super Doctors, 2022-2023
• University of California San Francisco: Health Systems and Leadership Area of Distinction, 2012
• AOA, Tufts University School of Medicine: Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) Honor Society, 2011

• Impella 55 Bridge to Heart Transplant: An Institutional Series and a Closer Look at Device Removal Technique. ASAIO J. 2024 Mar 14. . View in PubMed
• Successful Pregnancy After Left Ventricular Assist Device Explantation for Myocardial Recovery ASAIO J. 2024 Feb 01. . View in PubMed
• New UNOS allocation system associated with no added benefit in waitlist outcomes and worse post-transplant survival in heart-kidney patients J Heart Lung Transplant. 2023 11; 42(11):1529-1542. . View in PubMed
• Effect of the UNOS policy change on rates of rejection, infection, and hospital readmission following heart transplantation J Heart Lung Transplant. 2023 10; 42(10):1415-1424. . View in PubMed
• Assessment of Aortic Characteristic Impedance and Arterial Compliance from Non-invasive Carotid Pressure Waveform in The Framingham Heart Study Am J Cardiol. 2023 10 01; 204:195-199. . View in PubMed
• Mount Sinai Expert Guides: Critical CareBook Editor(s):Stephan A. Mayer MD, FCCM, FNCS, Janet M. Shapiro MD, FCCP, Umesh K. Gidwani MD, MS, FACC, FCCM, FCCP, John M. Oropello MD. Vasoactive Drugs in the ICU. 2023. . View in PubMed
• Effect of UNOS policy change and exception status request on outcomes in patients bridged to heart transplant with an intra-aortic balloon pump Artif Organs. 2022 May; 46(5):838-849. . View in PubMed
• UNOS policy change benefits high-priority patients without harming those at low priority Am J Transplant. 2022 12; 22(12):2931-2941. . View in PubMed
• Noninvasive methods to reduce cardiac complications postheart transplant Curr Opin Organ Transplant. 2022 02 01; 27(1):45-51. . View in PubMed
• Increasing Diversity in Cardiology: A Fellowship Director’s Perspective Cureus. 2021 Jul; 13(7):e16344. . View in PubMed
• Controversies in the Postoperative Management of the Critically Ill Heart Transplant Patient Anesth Analg. 2019 10; 129(4):1023-1033. . View in PubMed
• Post-Extrasystolic Transaortic Valve Gradients Differentiate “Pseudo” and “True” Low-Flow, Low-Gradient Severe AS During Dobutamine Stress Echocardiography JACC Cardiovasc Imaging. 2017 10; 10(10 Pt A):1199-1200. . View in PubMed
• An invasive or conservative strategy in patients with diabetes mellitus and non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndromes: a collaborative meta-analysis of randomized trials J Am Coll Cardiol. 2012 Jul 10; 60(2):106-11. . View in PubMed

• Kim, Gene
• Depasquale, Eugene
• Shaddy, Robert
• Barr, Mark