UMass Memorial Medical Center reopens cardiac surgery program November 1, 2005 WORCESTER, Mass. -- UMass Memorial Medical Center will reopen the heart surgery program it closed six weeks ago to correct problems that contributed to an above-average death rate after bypass surgery. The mortality rate at UMass Memorial for coronary artery bypass graft surgery was about 4 percent in 2003, the most recent year for which data was available. The statewide average was about 2.2 percent. The hospital voluntarily stopped performing elective cardiac surgery in September, but continued to offer angioplasty and stent placements, as well as emergency cardiac surgery. A team of heart surgeons from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston -- including former UMass Memorial cardiac surgery chief Dr. Thomas J. Vander Salm -- was brought in to work with the

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