Dr. Young is Professor of Medicine and Executive Dean, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University and Chairman of the Cleveland Clinic Endocrinology & Metabolism Institute. He is also Physician Director of Institutional Relations and Development, a Medical Director of the Kaufman Center for Heart Failure and is on the Steering Committee of the Bakken Heart-Brain Institute at Cleveland Clinic. He holds the George and Linda Kaufman Chair and is the Study Chairman of the NIH, FDA, and CMS Interagency Registry for Mechanical Circulatory Assist Support (INTERMACS). He holds a joint appointment in the Cleveland Clinic Multi-organ Transplant Center. Dr. Young is certified as a Diplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine as well as the subspecialty of Cardiovascular Disease and holds medical licensure from the states of California, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.
Dr. Young spent his early years in the San Francisco Bay area and then attended the University of Kansas, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors in Biology and was a resident of Stephenson Scholarship Hall. He matriculated to Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, where he was awarded his Medical Doctor degree cum laude in 1974 and was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society. Dr. Young remained in Houston at Baylor Affiliated Hospitals where he completed his clinical training, subsequently joined the faculty and was named Professor of Medicine with tenure in 1992. During this time, he was the Clinical Coordinator and Scientific Director for Dr. Michael E. DeBakey’s Multi-organ Transplant Center at The Methodist Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine.
Dr. Young relocated to Cleveland and Cleveland Clinic in 1995 where he was named Head of the Section of Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant Medicine in the Department of Cardiovascular Disease. In 1998 Dr. Young and his surgical colleague Patrick McCarthy, MD, created the Kaufman Center for Heart Failure at Cleveland Clinic.
Dr. Young’s research activities began during his residency and fellowship training while he was a Lipid Research Clinic (LRC) physician. He subsequently focused his efforts on heart failure, mechanical circulatory support, and cardiac transplant therapeutics, including early experiences with dopamine receptor agonists, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, angiotensin receptor blockers, many new immunosuppressants and a variety of parenteral inotropes and vasodilators. He has collaborated extensively with his basic science research associates, focusing on translational research related to the molecular biology of cardiac remodeling, allograft arteriopathy and transplanted heart rejection.
Dr. Young has participated in more than 150 clinical trials as an investigator and served as the U.S. Principal or Co-Principal Investigator for the HOPE, RESOLVED, SPICE, VMAC, MIRACLE-ICD, RED-HF, ACCLAIM, ONTARGET, TRENSCEND and CHARM multi-center clinical trials. He has published more than 550 manuscripts and several textbooks. Professionally, Dr. Young gains the greatest satisfaction from his contributions to the development and administration of donor organ procurement programs, his efforts to secure recognition for the emerging cardiology subspecialty of ‘heart failure and cardiac transplant medicine, and his collaborations with basic and clinical scientists.