Joseph E. Bavaria, M.D., FACS, FRCS (Edin) ad hom, (born 1957) is an American cardiothoracic surgeon, a professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania, and Director of its Thoracic Aortic Surgery Program. He was born in 1957 to Elizabeth “Janee” Swank and Edward Bavaria in Little Rock, Arkansas. Bavaria graduated from Indian Hill High School and went on to attend Tulane University as an undergraduate. He spent a year as an honors exchange student in Edinburgh, Scotland, and graduated with honors from Tulane University in 1979 with a degree in chemical engineering.
He then attended Tulane University School of Medicine, where he had an externship in cardiac and thoracic surgery in Cincinnati, which solidified his decision to pursue a career in cardiothoracic surgery. Bavaria graduated from Tulane’s Medical School with the prestigious “Gold Scalpel Award,” the highest surgical honor for a medical student. In July 1983, he began his residency as a surgeon at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP).
