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    Jennifer Solms Nelson, MD

    Cardiothoracic Surgeon
    Provider Profile

    ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Children's Hospital, Florida 6535 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Parkway Orlando, FL 32827

    Biography

    Dr. Jennifer Nelson is the Director of Research and a congenital heart surgeon at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Children's Health, Orlando, FL. She is also a Professor of Surgery at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine. Her research interests relate to patient outcomes after congenital heart surgery, risk assessment for children and adults undergoing cardiac surgery, and the epigenetics of congenital heart disease. Dr. Nelson holds several international professional society leadership positions and recently served for six years as the Chair of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) Workforce on the Surgical Treatment of Adults with Congenital Heart Disease. During that time, she led the development of the STS Adult Congenital Heart Disease mortality risk model and the STS clinical registry for adults with congenital heart disease undergoing any type of cardiac surgery. She is the former Resident Director to the STS Board of Directors, and currently serves on the Workforce for National Databases as the adult congenital heart disease lead. She is the current Chair of the STS Congenital Access and Publications Committee and participates on several international clinical guidelines writing groups. Most recently, she served as the congenital program chair for the Southern Thoracic Surgical Association's 71st annual meeting in November 2024.

    Fellowship

    • Congenital Cardiac Surgery - University of Michigan Health System, 2013
    • Thoracic Surgery - University of Michigan Health System, 2012

    Residency

    • General Surgery - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2010

    Education

    • M.S. - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2016
    • M.D. - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2005

    Board Certifications

    • American Board of Surgery/Thoracic Cardiac Surgery

    • Transesophageal echocardiography in congenital heart surgery: Perioperative considerations; Progress in Pediatric Cardiology; (2020).

    • Intraoperative echocardiography in congenital heart surgery: What the surgeon wants to know; Progress in Pediatric Cardiology; (2020).

    • Good News or Bad News? Considering Physician and Patient Perspectives on Outcomes.; The Annals of thoracic surgery; (2020).

    • A Systematic Review of Antibiotic Prophylaxis for Delayed Sternal Closure in Children.; World journal for pediatric & congenital heart surgery; (2020).

    • National Practice Patterns and Early Outcomes of Aortic Valve Replacement in Children and Teens.; The Annals of thoracic surgery; (2019).

    • Surgery for Dysphagia Lusoria in Children.; The Annals of thoracic surgery; (2019).

    • Commentary: Allografts and pregnancy-Can good statistics lead to mis-conceptions about the relationship?; The Journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery; (2019).

    • Hope should not spring eternal.; The Journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery; (2018).

    • Regional Differences in Cost and Length of Stay in Neonates with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome.; Pediatric cardiology; (2018).

    • Paracorporeal Lung Devices: Thinking Outside the Box.; Frontiers in pediatrics; (2018).

    • Regional differences in right versus left congenital heart disease diagnoses in neonates in the United States.; Birth defects research; (2017).

    • Feasibility of a healthcare system-based tetralogy of Fallot patient registry.; Cardiology in the young; (2017).

    • Evaluation of Explanted CorMatrix Intracardiac Patches in Children With Congenital Heart Disease.; The Annals of thoracic surgery; (2016).

    • Early extubation in pediatric heart surgery across a spectrum of case complexity: Impact on hospital length of stay and chest tube days.; Progress in pediatric cardiology; (2016).

    • Geographic distribution of live births with tetralogy of Fallot in North Carolina 2003 to 2012.; Birth defects research. Part A, Clinical and molecular teratology; (2016).

    • Sex bias in CNS autoimmune disease mediated by androgen control of autoimmune regulator.; Nature communications; (2016).

    • Resident Perceptions of 2-Year Versus 3-Year Cardiothoracic Training Programs.; The Annals of thoracic surgery; (2015).

    • Long-Term Survival and Reintervention After the Ross Procedure Across the Pediatric Age Spectrum.; The Annals of thoracic surgery; (2015).

    • Invited Commentary.; The Annals of thoracic surgery; (2015).