Michael H. Beasley, MD

Michael Harry Beasley, MD, is a cardiologist who specializes in advanced heart failure and heart transplantation. He cares for patients both in the hospital in New Haven, as well as in clinics at Yale Medicine offices in New London and Norwich.

“My passion lies in clinical care, so being able to deliver high-level care to my patients brings me joy,” Dr. Beasley says. “I genuinely care about the patients I serve, and I do my best to understand each one as a whole person. I make every effort to be completely present both mentally and emotionally during the time I spend with them.”

Heart transplantation is changing, and Dr. Beasley is excited about the future for several reasons. These include the availability of better pharmaceuticals for transplant patients, as well as the work being put toward making durable ventricular assist devices (VADs), or heart pumps, more tolerable for patients with less associated risk.

Most patients who need advanced heart failure therapies do much better when they are evaluated early—prior to the onset of critical illness or end-organ dysfunction, says Dr. Beasley. “Therefore, we try to anticipate which patients may need such options even if it’s years in the future, and then we prepare so that they can have the best possible outcome when their day for heart transplant or VAD implantation arrives.” For that reason, he encourages early referrals from cardiologists and early self-referrals from patients themselves.

Yale Medicine’s Heart Transplant and Left Ventricular Assist Device Program is one of the most rapidly expanding programs of its kind in the country. It is one of a limited number of programs that will push the envelope to utilize donor hearts that many other programs reject, optimizing those organs so that more sick patients who are eligible may be able to receive one. “At Yale, we are proud that we offer these therapies to patients who may be turned away at other centers and are happy to see that their outcomes have been terrific,” Dr. Beasley says.