“I’m reminded on a daily basis of why I love this job.”Dr. Alan Hartman is the senior vice president and executive director of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at Northwell Health. In this pivotal position, Dr. Hartman is at the helm of one of New York’s busiest and most successful cardiothoracic departments, which includes programs at the Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital at North Shore University Hospital, Southside Hospital, Lenox Hill Hospital and Staten Island University Hospital.With more than 30 years of surgical experience and a stellar reputation for taking high risk cases others have turned down, Dr. Hartman is one of New York’s most sought after cardiac surgeons. He is routinely ranked by the New York State Department of Health, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and other organizations for having among the state’s best outcomes in cardiac surgery. His areas of expertise include aortic and mitral valve surgery, aortic aneurysm surgery, coronary artery surgery, pulmonary thromboembolic surgery and critical care. Dr. Hartman’s teams treat some of the largest numbers of aortic dissections in the region because of exceptional expertise and medical transport capabilities.Dr. Hartman realized his passion for medicine when he was in high school. A genuine love of science coupled with his yearning to help people in need led to afternoons volunteering at local hospitals. Around the same time, his father passed away at a young age, bolstering his determination to get into the medical field and make a profound difference in people’s lives.That difference is particularly evident in Dr. Hartman’s impactful role in opening the Heart Hospital in Manhasset, which offers the first and only full-service heart transplant program on Long Island and in Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. The Heart Hospital is a premier destination for quaternary cardiac care—from minimally invasive procedures to the most complex, life-changing heart transplants—and it exemplifies Dr. Hartman’s vision of making advanced cardiac care accessible to people in all the communities served by Northwell.Dr. Hartman is especially proud of the focused care and attention he and his teams offer patients and their families—before, during and after surgery. This is one of the reasons he helped create the Follow Your Heart program, which sends skilled medical professionals to patients’ homes to help with recovery after cardiac surgery and keep hospital readmissions down.Dr. Hartman is a professor and the Barbash Family endowed chair of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. He’s also a member of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the American College of Surgeons. He has continually received recognition on New York magazine’s Top Doctors list, and his significant publication contributions include areas such as pulmonary thromboembolic disease, repair of left atrial esophageal fistula and transcather aortic valve replacement (TAVR) outcomes. Dr. Hartman also participates in research and clinical trials to offer patients the latest cardiac treatment options.With a decades-long career of outstanding achievements and a continuous dedication to raising the bar in cardiac care, Dr. Hartman asserts the most gratifying thing about his job is, quite simply, knowing his patients.“Interacting with them, and getting to know them and their families, is what is most satisfying for me,” he says.  He adds that while some in the medical field may become hardened after many years of practice, he feels just the opposite.“I think my colleagues and I have become more humbled,” Dr. Hartman says. “We’ll all need health care eventually. That’s why my driving principle has always been to treat everybody with the respect and due diligence that you’d want for yourself and your family.”