Dr Natta

Editor-in-Chief: Dr Timothy Van Natta

Dr  Van Natta is an Associate Professor of surgery in the Divisions of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Trauma/Surgical Critical Care at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles County.  After graduating in 1988 from the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, he went on to a five-year general surgery residency at Marshfield Clinic/St. Joseph's Hospital in Wisconsin. Upon completing his residency, he remained on staff there as a general and vascular surgeon. 

Three years later he moved to Tennessee to pursue a two-year trauma/surgical critical care fellowship at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. In 1998, he joined the Vanderbilt faculty as an assistant professor of surgery in the Division of Trauma and Critical Care.  He left that post in 2000 to begin a three-year fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City. He joined the faculty of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery there in 2003 as an assistant professor, and he remained there until joining the Department of Surgery at Harbor-UCLA in 2006.

Dr. Van Natta is certified by the American Board of Surgery in both surgery and surgical critical care, and by the American Board of Thoracic Surgery. He has published articles and chapters pertaining to trauma, surgical infections, and cardiothoracic surgery, and he has received several teaching awards. His main professional areas of interest include cardiothoracic surgery (trauma emphasis), chest infections, thoracic oncologic surgery, patient access to thoracic surgery, and medical education. Outside interests include family activities, running, reading, and classical guitar.