UCSF Loses Top Heart Surgeon Over Trump’s Hostility Toward Canada

Cross-border politics have cost the UCSF Medical Center a leading heart surgeon from Canada who was set to start his job this month but changed his mind. The reason: economic and political hostility toward our northern neighbor emanating from the Trump administration.

UCSF touted the hiring of Dr. Marc Ruel late last year, saying he would be relocating from Canada to serve as the chief of the Division of Adult Cardiothoracic Surgery.

“Dr. Ruel is one of the world’s most highly regarded cardiac surgeons, and his leadership will undoubtedly elevate our division to new heights across all our missions,” Dr. Julie Ann Sosa, chair of the Department of Surgery at UCSF, wrote in its December newsletter.

Ruel, too, had notified colleagues in Canada that he was leaving his post at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI) to head up the division at UCSF, a position he accepted last fall. But a message from Sosa and another UCSF physician sent on March 4 to colleagues notified staff that Ruel had decided not to move to California, apparently influenced by President Donald Trump’s threats of tariffs and talk of annexing Canada as the 51st state.

The message, signed by Sosa and Dr. Joshua Adler, acknowledged that much preparation had been made for Ruel’s arrival, adding that he “made the personal decision not to move forward with his relocation, given the evolving political climate and his commitment to serving his current institution in Ottawa.”

The message also noted the “tremendous effort” UCSF teams put into preparing for Ruel’s arrival, “laying the groundwork for his transition … and extending a warm welcome to him and his family.” Despite that lost effort, the physicians said the medical center “respects his decision.”

The impact of Ruel’s decision is being felt by patients in the Bay Area, including Jennifer Friedman of Berkeley. She has a hereditary condition leading to a partially blocked artery to her heart — a condition she was told could, at some point, require invasive open-heart surgery and a very long recovery.

She was excited to learn from UCSF that Ruel could treat her using a far less invasive procedure. The two connected by text, email and phone to get her on his schedule at UCSF.

“Dr. Ruel was the hero surgeon that was coming to teach everybody at UCSF how to do the magical procedure,” Friedman told KQED. “And I was so excited that he was coming.”

Friedman said it was her understanding that in preparation for Ruel’s arrival, UCSF was going to “send a team of people from UCSF to Canada to see what his whole operating room situation looked like so they could basically recreate it here in San Francisco. And I don’t know if that happened or not, but then Trump was elected.”

The internal UCSF letter to staff was careful not to weigh in on the U.S. political situation — not surprising given the enormous amount of federal dollars UCSF receives — but said, “We respect his need to adapt to changing circumstances — just as we do every day to advance our mission and provide world-class care to our patients.”

In 2023, UCSF received $789 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which the Trump administration is trying to slash. In February, the University of California announced its support for a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Rob Bonta and 21 other states seeking to block the action. Earlier this month, a federal judge extended a temporary restraining order pausing efforts to cut NIH medical and scientific research grants to universities and hospitals.

UCSF did not publicly announce the loss of Ruel and declined KQED’s repeated requests for comment while referring us to the doctor. A spokesperson for the University of Ottawa confirmed that Ruel changed his mind over political considerations and will likely stay there.

According to UOHI’s website, Ruel, who was trained at Harvard, led its Division of Cardiac Surgery for 11 years. The university notes that the focus of Ruel’s research and work has been to make cardiac surgery “less invasive, more evidence-based, and performed with better patient outcomes.” He is currently the director of Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery at UOHI.

In an email to Friedman sent on March 4, Ruel told her of his regrets that he would no longer be coming to UCSF, stressing that it was his personal affection for his nation that drove his decision.

“I am a proud Canadian, above all else, and I cannot in my patriotic conscience ignore what is happening,” Ruel wrote.

Now Friedman, 57, is back to square one, looking for a new surgeon. “I’m disappointed, I’m sad and I’m scared. And I feel like this is just the beginning of the ramifications” of Trump’s policies, she said.