Allison McLarty Honored with Health Care Heroes Lifetime Achievement Award

Allison McLarty, MD, Stony Brook Medicine's Department of Surgery Chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, has been named the 2026 Health Care Heroes Lifetime Achievement Award winner by Long Island Business News (LIBN). Dr. McLarty has previously been recognized by LIBN for her work with the Stony Brook Ventricular Assist Device Program.

The Health Care Heroes Awards honor and celebrate innovative and influential organizations and individuals who are making positive differences in the quality of healthcare on Long Island.

"I am humbled and grateful to receive the award; it's been the honor of my lifetime career at Stony Brook Medicine to have worked with outstanding teams here to serve the people of Long Island and educate the healthcare providers of tomorrow," said Dr. McLarty.

Dr. McLarty has been a professor of surgery in the Department of Surgery's cardiothoracic faculty since 1997 and has been division chief since November 2025. She is also the associate program director for the General Surgery Residency program, director of Mechanical Circulatory Support, surgical director of the Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) program and leads the Extra-Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) program for short-term circulatory support for critically ill patients. She was previously chief of surgery at the Northport VA Medical Center and led Stony Brook Medicine's multidisciplinary Lung Cancer Center.

After receiving her MD from Columbia University in 1988, she completed general surgery residency training at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and then joined Stony Brook Medicine after her fellowship training in cardiothoracic surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. At Stony Brook's Department of Surgery, she has specialized in cardiac and thoracic surgery, and her clinical/research interests include ECMO, LVAD and aortic disease.

Dr. McLarty is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a member of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation and the American Association of Thoracic Surgery. Her dedication to providing her patients with extraordinary care has earned her several awards, including Brookhaven Health Person of the Year, Brookhaven Woman of the Year in Medicine, Brookhaven's Women's Recognition Award for Medicine, the Village Times Herald's Woman of the Year in Health and Castle Connolly's Exceptional Woman in Medicine award.