Our Team

Octavio E. Pajaro, MD, PhD is a cardiothoracic surgeon with more than 25 years of experience in cardiovascular and thoracic surgery, transplantation, and mechanical circulatory support. He completed his undergraduate training in biochemical sciences at Harvard University, where he
was awarded a Harvard Fellow Scholarship, earned his MD with Alpha Omega Alpha honors and a PhD inphysiology and biophysics through the Medical Scientist Training Program at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and completed his general surgery residency and cardiothoracic surgery fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he also earned the George Zuidema Research Award. He subsequently trained as a Fulbright Scholar at Oxford University’s John Radcliffe Hospital, where he conducted postdoctoral research in transplant biology, and later completed an advanced heart and lung transplant fellowship at Harefield Hospital in
London under the mentorship of Sir Magdi Yacoub.Dr. Pajaro has held faculty and leadership positions at Mayo Clinic Florida, the University of
Alabama at Birmingham, Mayo Clinic Arizona, Sanford Heart Hospital, and the Michael E.DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center, where he served as Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgeryand Professor of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Pajaro was one of the founders of the Heart and Lung transplant programs at Mayo Clinic Florida and served as the surgical director of Lung transplantation. At Mayo Clinic Arizona, he served concurrently as Surgical Director of Heart Transplantation and Mechanical Circulatory Support, Surgical Director of the ECMO Program, and Chair of the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery. Under his surgical leadership, the heart transplant program grew from 12–16 transplants annually to 50
per year, achieving outstanding one- and three-year survival.
Dr. Pajaro has authored or co-authored multiple peer-reviewed publications in journals including The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Transplantation, The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, and Mayo Clinic Proceedings, and has served as Editor-in-Chief of The
Einstein Quarterly Journal of Biology and Medicine. He has served as principal investigator or site investigator on multiple national and international multi-center clinical trials, including pivotal trials for ventricular assist device systems, and has presented at meetings across four
continents. He is a member of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the American association of Thoracic Surgeons, the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation, the American
Society of Transplantation, and the International Society of Computational Biology.
Beyond clinical practice, Dr. Pajaro brings a distinctive commitment to education and
innovation. He has developed learning platforms using automated text messaging and generative AI tools to support thoracic surgery trainees in board examination preparation, and has mentored
fellows, residents, advanced practice providers, doctoral candidates, and undergraduate
researchers throughout his career.