Our Mission
The mission of Hopkins Medicine is excellence in research, education and clinical care. The cardiac anesthesia division has years of success in all 3 categories.
Cardiac surgery and procedures can be complex, invasive, and be accompanied by a great deal of patient and family anxiety. The Cardiac Anesthesia Division at Johns Hopkins represents and practices alongside world renowned cardiac care providers to instill comfort and confidence for patients and families receiving cardiac care. Procedures for cardiac patients are done in some of the most technically sophisticated operating suites in the world. Each cardiac operating suite contains state of the art monitoring equipment including TEE machines with 3D capability to promote the highest quality and safe patient care for each surgical procedure. This care continues during the postoperative period in the critical care suite. Additionally, the Cardiac Anesthesia Division collaborates with the Cardiac Electrophysiology group to support all diagnostic and intervention procedures in the EP procedural suites. Also, Cardiac anesthesia exclusively provides real-time interventional echocardiography guidance for structural heart procedures including percutaneous mitral, aortic and tricuspid valve repair/replacements – as well as for left atrial appendage procedures. Faculty are recognized experts in echocardiography, including 3D echocardiography and interventional echocardiography.
Our Faculty
The Cardiac Division’s faculty are heavily involved in research, addressing fundamental questions of discovery in both basic science and in the clinical domain. With approximately $2 million in annual extramural funding, patients and their families can feel confident in their providers’ techniques and expertise while receiving general anesthesia and continuous vital monitoring in the operating rooms.
The cardiac anesthesia faculty are incredibly involved in education on a local as well as international level. Faculty consistently speak at national and international conferences as well as hold leadership positions in orchestrating these conferences.
Dr. Hensley Receives Patient Blood Management Volunteer Leadership Award
The Society for the Advancement of Patient Blood Management presented their 2026 Volunteer Leadership Award Winner to Nadia Hensley, MD.
Dr. Hensley specializes in adult cardiothoracic anesthesiology and serves as the Director for Quality, Safety and Service in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine. Her interests include research in cardiac surgical blood utilization and quality improvement in intraoperative blood administration.
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Electrophysiology (EP) Cohort
CRNAs in the EP cohort are expert in providing anesthesia to cardiac patients undergoing minimally invasive procedures such as radiofrequency ablation (RFA) of dysrhythmias, implantation and removal of pacemakers and defibrillators, device lead removal/revision, implantation of pulmonic valves, the Lariat procedure, electrophysiological studies, cardioversion, and transesophageal echocardiograms. The EP cohort currently has 28 CRNAs. This cohort is under the cardiac anesthesia division and has an excellent collaborative practice with the cardiac anesthesiologists.