General Surgery Chief Resident, University of Maryland School of Medicine and R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center
Surgical Director, Johns Hopkins Global Alliance of Perioperative Professionals (JHU-GAPP)
Ifeanyi has spent more than a decade in cardiothoracic care. He started at the bedside as a cardiothoracic ICU nurse, then spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow in cardiac surgery at Johns Hopkins, studying how to protect the brain during cardiac surgery and ECMO. He now leads as chief resident in general surgery.
Research, innovation, entrepreneurship, infrastructure development, global surgery and education. Each overlaps the next. The tour walks around the ring on its own; select any circle or overlap (+) to stop and read it.
Lead postdoctoral researcher on Dr. Jennifer S. Lawton's NIH-funded neuroprotection program in the Johns Hopkins Division of Cardiac Surgery.
A portable, ultra-low-field (64 mT) MRI, tested device by device until it could be used at the ECMO bedside.
His work keeps returning to the same question: is there a better instrument, repair or prediction for this patient?
AthleticsMD made surgical prehabilitation a structured, physician-led program, and built the clinical and research software it runs on.
A physician-owned group of medical clinics and surgical prehabilitation programs in Columbia and Laurel, Maryland, now building a Comprehensive Outpatient Rehabilitation Facility.
The practice is designed so that clinical work in Maryland helps pay for surgical capacity abroad, through Healing Vessels International, the family's 501(c)(3).
Surgery fails without oxygen and electricity. Much of his leadership has gone into supplying both.
Oxygen and solar infrastructure delivered with academic and clinical partners, so it outlasts the grant.
He is Surgical Director of the Johns Hopkins Global Alliance of Perioperative Professionals, which works with partner hospitals in West Africa, and has been its Regional Director of Research since 2023.
Programs built so that local clinicians teach the next group themselves.
He was recognized as a nurse educator in the ICU, published on how surgeons are recruited, and designed a surgical curriculum from first principles.
Research on the training pipeline itself: who chooses cardiothoracic surgery, and what helps them stay.
Every one of these areas serves the same patient: reaching the operation in good condition, having the brain and heart protected during it, and recovering inside systems that work. Cardiothoracic surgery training is the next step on that same path.
Select a stage. Each one built on the one before: he cared for cardiac surgery patients in the ICU, studied them in the laboratory, and is now trained to operate on them.
As a nursing student in the Honors College, he published a letter in the Journal of Electrocardiology with his mentor, L. Lee Glenn, on how automated ECG readings should be validated. He graduated with a BSN, magna cum laude, in 2013, with an honors thesis on exercise and cognition in older adults.
He cared for patients after cardiac surgery, through the hours when bleeding, low cardiac output and neurological injury declare themselves. Peers recognized him with a DAISY Award as an educator. Those years shaped the question his research later took up: what happens to the brain.
He earned his MD on a full-tuition scholarship. In 2018 he was first author of the Massachusetts statewide Inpatient Opioid Misuse Prevention Guidelines, issued with Tufts Medical Center through the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association. His work with incarcerated people in Boston was recognized through the Clinton Global Initiative University.
He trained at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center. His first-author paper on surgery residency websites appeared in the Journal of Surgical Education in 2021.
As Irene Piccinini Investigator, then Joyce Koons Fund Postdoctoral Fellow, he was lead postdoctoral researcher on Dr. Jennifer S. Lawton's NIH-funded work on protecting the brain during cardiac surgery. As lead postdoctoral fellow of the HERALD team, he shared Johns Hopkins ICTR Best Science Awards in 2023 and 2024. He also earned an MBA in healthcare administration at the Carey Business School on a merit scholarship.
He leads the general surgery residency as chief, while continuing to publish with the Johns Hopkins cardiac surgery and neurocritical care groups. Eleven more papers carrying his name appeared in 2025 and 2026. His interests are cerebral protection during hypothermic circulatory arrest, complex coronary revascularization, and open and minimally invasive aortic surgery.
A patient on ECMO who may have had a stroke usually needs a CT scan, and getting one means moving the patient, the circuit and a team down the hall. Over four years, this group asked whether a portable, ultra-low-field (64 mT) MRI could come to the bedside instead, and whether it was safe with the devices these patients depend on.
Getting to the CT scanner means moving the patient, the ECMO circuit, the infusions and a bedside team out of the ICU and down the hall. That trip is a known source of risk for the sickest patients, so imaging is often put off.
The group's studies, run step by step, showed the portable MRI could be used safely at the bedside alongside each device these patients rely on:
Click a year to filter the list, or choose a theme. Each paper links to its DOI. 23 carry his name in the byline; the other 8 credit him as a member of an ECMO study group.
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Bibliographic data from PubMed (U.S. National Library of Medicine). The full family bibliography is on the research page.
The roles below each came with a team to lead, a budget or a curriculum, and an outcome he answers for.
University of Maryland School of Medicine and the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center.
Africa Infrastructure Relief and Support (AIRS), a Direct Relief grant to the Society of Critical Care Medicine with JHU-GAPP, 2023.
He led the team that set up Liberia's first national training program in hypoxia recognition, oxygen therapy and oxygen infrastructure. The program trains physicians, residents, nurses, engineers and public health officials. 2024.
Co-leader of a national program on diagnosing childhood hypoxia and solar-supported oxygen.
Physician-owned medical clinics and surgical prehabilitation in Columbia and Laurel, Maryland, and the clinical software they run on.
Global Surgery University's integrated pathway, from foundational sciences to supervised independent practice through four assessment gates.
Johns Hopkins Global Alliance of Perioperative Professionals, where he has also been Regional Director of Research since 2023.
Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, on a merit scholarship, completed alongside his research fellowship.
The full record, also available as a PDF from the button at the top of the page. david@chinedozi.com · chinedozi.com/ifeanyi
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