‘Honored and grateful’: Health Sciences names PA post-graduate education division for Saha

LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 16, 2025) — The University of Kentucky College of Health Sciences announced this week the naming of the Division of Physician Assistant Studies Post-Graduate Education in honor of Sibu P. Saha, M.D.

Saha, who currently serves as the UK Physician Assisant Program’s medical director and chief of transition to practice and advanced training programs, is also a professor of surgery with a joint appointment in the College of Medicine and Pigman College of Engineering.

“I am honored and grateful,” Saha said.   

Nearly 40 years ago, Saha came to Lexington to start a heart surgery program at Central Baptist Hospital, where he performed the first open heart surgery at that hospital on Nov.16, 1982. 

Originally from Bengal, India, where rheumatic heart disease was rampant, Saha saw an opportunity to make a difference. He got his degree in Bangladesh at Rajshahi Medical College. He completed his residency at Ohio Valley Hospital in Steubenville, Ohio, and the University Hospital of Jacksonville in Florida. He then went to Charleston, S.C., where he completed his fellowship at the Medical University of South Carolina. 

Saha is certified with the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Thoracic Surgery.

He joined the University of Kentucky as a voluntary faculty member in 1987. 

Following a distinguished career in private practice, Saha joined the faculty at UK College of Medicine in 2002 as professor of surgery in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery. He served as the chair of the Director’s Council of the Gil Heart Institute until 2019. He then served as the chief and program director for CT Surgery from 2013 to ’18. 

Saha is an avid mentor to surgical residents, medical students and physician assistant students. In 2010, Saha and his wife, Becky, made a very special gift through the Saha Foundation for Cardiovascular Research and Education to establish the Saha Cardiovascular Research Center at UK. The endowment substantially adds to the Cardiovascular Research Center’s resources, bolstering the exceptional efforts of UK’s physician-scientist and researchers to better understand and seek cures for cardiovascular disease. 

Saha is a past president of the International College of Angiology and International College of Surgeons, U.S. Section. Saha’s research interests include transmyocardial revascularization, carotid atherosclerosis, lung cancer and device therapy for hypertension.

“Dr. Saha’s leadership has been nothing short of inspirational for our faculty and students,” said Virginia Valentin, Dr.P.H., and chair for the department of physician assistant studies and the program director for the PA academic residency. “The quality of our department, and our alumni, are a reflection of our faculty — faculty like Dr. Saha, who is an amazing professor, researcher and clinician. We are thrilled to focus on building the Kentucky health workforce at the Sibu Saha PAS Division of Post-Graduate Education.”

“We are so fortunate to have the expertise and skill that Dr. Saha brings to us every day,” said Scott Lephart, Ph.D., dean of the College of Health Sciences. “To be able to honor him in this way — it really is the least we can do for all he has done, and continues to do, for us in our college.”