Dr. Kanter served as the Chief of Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta from 1990 to 2013. He currently serves as Director of the Heart Transplant Program at Children’s and is Professor of Surgery at Emory University School of Medicine.

Dr. Kanter graduated from Albany Medical College in Albany, N.Y. He completed his internal medicine residency at Emory University, followed by residencies in general surgery, cardiac surgery research and cardiothoracic surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He completed his pediatric cardiac surgery fellowship at Royal Brompton Hospital in London, England, and his pediatric cardiothoracic and transplantation fellowship at Harefield Hospital in Middlesex, England.

For more than 30 years, Dr. Kanter has pioneered the field of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery and pediatric heart transplantation. He has directed the Heart Transplant Program at Children’s since its inception in 1988, performing more than 350 heart transplants in his career. He successfully performed Georgia’s first pediatric heart transplant, first ABO-incompatible heart transplant, first lung transplant, first heterotopic heart transplant, first heart-kidney transplant, first heart-lung transplant, first domino transplant and first pediatric ventricular assist device. He also performed Georgia’s first successful Norwood, Ross, Nikaidoh and double switch procedures.