Surgery: Cardiovascular Surgery Consultants: 7

C. Michael Wright, MD, FACC, DABCL, FNLA, is board certified in Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Disease, and Clinical Lipidology. With 30 years of experience, his main interest and focus is in preventing cardiovascular disease through a combination of lifestyle interventions, sophisticated risk assessment and, when appropriate, judicious use of medications. 

Litigation Support - Dr. Wright has been providing medical expert witness consultative services to attorneys representing both plaintiff and defendant for over five years. His services include medical record review, written reports, depositions, and trial testimony. Dr. Wright's cases include issues of: Cardiovascular Disease - Internal Medicine - Clinical Lipidology - Preventive Cardiology

Background - Dr. Wright is currently a Cardiologist in private practice at Scripps Memorial Hospital, Scripps Center for Executive Health, and a Staff physician at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, California. Dr. Wright completed his cardiovascular fellowship at UCSD. 

From 1999 to 2007, Dr. Wright founded and served as CEO of the LifeScore Clinic. During this time, he performed over 15,000 comprehensive assessments on clients from all over the world. Dr. Wright combined sophisticated body imaging with extensive lab work, often including genetic testing and advanced biomarker testing. His published research, 20 publications in peer-reviewed journals, is the most comprehensive CT database. It demonstrates that standard chest CTs can be used to accurately predict cardiovascular mortality by quantifying the calcium in the coronary arteries. 

Dr. Wright is a voluntary Clinical Professor at UCSD, Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, where he mentors post doctoral students and assists with research papers on data collected at LifeScore Clinic. He is also on the LipoScience Advisory Panel and Speaker Panel where he counsels on the various density lipoprotein (LDL) particles in the blood and provides physicians and their patients with information to personalize management of risk for heart disease.

Dr. Robert Stark is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and presently teaches on the Clinical Faculty at New York Medical College.  He is past-president of the Connecticut Society of Internal Medicine, and has served as senior member of  Connecticut’s Medical Malpractice Claims Review Panel Dr. Stark is a senior member of his hospital’s Medical Ethics Committee.  He is in active, full-time practice in internal medicine and cardiology. Cardiac Testing: Appropriate utilization of cardiac tests: Holter Monitor – remote recording of heart rhythm. Stress Test – exercise EKG to detect coronary disease. Nuclear Stress Test – enhanced cardiac imaging with radioisotope tracer. C-T Angiogram – X-ray technique to image coronary arteries Cholesterol/Lipids Screening – blood tests to assess coronary risk.

Hospital Consulting:

Physician Burnout Physician Suicide Medical Disciplinary Actions Physician Licensing Medical Ethics

End-of-Life Issues Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) Medical Practice Management Medical Billing/Collections

Personal Message:

     “The ability to communicate effectively is just as important in consulting and expert work as it is in quality patient care.”

View Dr. Stark's Expert Witness Profile

MRK Medical Consultants provides Medical-Legal Evaluations to help legal and insurance professionals reach appropriate conclusions about their client's situations. MRK provides a wide array of medical experts that offer objective review and analysis of personal injuries. Each stage of the process—research to review, analysis to opinion—is addressed in a comprehensive manner in order to help legal and insurance professionals reach appropriate conclusions about their client’s situations. MRK has over forty board certified physician specialists and many with subspecialty certifications. MRK provides physician experts to the entire State of California, the Reno/Lake Tahoe area and Las Vegas, and we travel to many areas of the United States. Physical therapy, registered nurses, physician assistant and billing review consultants are available services MRK provides. Oncall MD's in office daily to discuss your needs if you are unsure of what expert you need.

Edward W. Younger, III, M.D., Medical Director of MRK Medical Consultants, specializes in Orthopedic Surgery. He has extensive experience in total joint replacement, as well as reconstructive surgery of the knee, hip and shoulder. He was instrumental in bringing computer navigation technology to his hospital. He has served on the orthopedic trauma staff at Mercy San Juan Medical Center and serves on the Medical Executive Committee at Mercy San Juan. He is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha National Honor Society and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery, a member of the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons and the California Orthopedic Association.


Dr. Michael R. Klein, Jr., M.D., specializes in Orthopedic Surgery and is a founding member and the first Medical Director of Northern California Orthopedic Centers. He is a senior member of the medical staff at Mercy San Juan Medical Center and was involved with the development of the orthopedic section of the Level II Trauma Center.

Dr. Klein is a clinical instructor at University of California, Davis, Medical Center, a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons and a member of the American Medical Association and the California Medical Association.

MRK's Areas of Expertise:

Orthopedics Neurosurgery / Neurology Rheumatology General surgery / trauma Emergency Medicine Internal Medicine Cardiology Geriatrics Sports Medicine RN Physical Therapy Chiropractic Orthopedics

Neuropsychology Podiatry Vascular Surgery Family Practice Anesthesiology Ophthalmology Optometry Urology Gastroenterology Infectious Disease Pulmonary Medicine Critical care Otolaryngology

Dr. Thomas J. Berger, was board certified in 1981 as a cardiac surgeon by the American Board of Thoracic Surgery and has been involved, as an expert, in over 300 medical malpractice cases. Most of this experience has been since 1998, when his firm, Heart of the Matter Expertise, began to gain recognition, within the legal community, as the premier expert witness service for cases involving cardiac surgery and cardio-thoracic disease.

Areas of Expertise:

• Cardiovascular Surgery
• Cardiology
• Surgery - General
• Thoracic Surgery

Mission Statement

To see that the truth about every case, in which an associate of Heart of the Matter Expertise becomes involved, is uncovered and understood, whether this means assuring justice for a poorly treated patient or protecting the precious reputation of an unfairly accused physician.

Anthony C Chang, MD, MBA, MPH, MS is internationally recognized as an expert in the field of Pediatric Cardiology. He has a master’s degree in Healthcare Administration from University of Miami School of Business, from which he graduated with the McGaw Prize for academic excellence and a master's degree in Biomedical Data Science from Stanford University. Dr. Chang also has a master’s degree in Public Health from UCLA, from which he graduated with the Dean’s Award for academic excellence.

Dr. Chang leads pediatric heart teams all over the world. He was one of the founding members of the Asia-Pacific Pediatric Cardiac Society (APPCS) and will be initiating the foundation arm of the society at the bequest of the board. A world-renown leader in pediatric cardiology innovation, Dr. Chang is a member of the grant review committee for pediatric research at the National Institutes of Health. Respected in his field, he is a member the board of directors for the American Heart Association.

Providing leadership in education, Dr. Chang has served with the faculty of UCLA School of Public Health (eMPH program) and has taught global health for UCLA’s eMPH. He also teaches pediatric cardiology to cardiology fellows and holds a volunteer faculty appointment at the UCLA School of Medicine.

Doctor Chang - Being A Doctor

Dr. Chang is the founder of the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society (PCICS) that launched the multi-disciplinary focus on cardiac intensive care for children. He is also the founder of the Asia-Pacific Pediatric Cardiac Society (APPCS), which united pediatric cardiologists and cardiac surgeons from 24 Asian countries and launched a biennial meeting in Asia that now draws over 1,000 attendees. Dr. Chang has made over 50 medical missions around the world, including over 25 trips to China.

Dr. Chang is the founder and medical director of the Medical Intelligence and Innovation Institute (MI3), dedicated to implementing data science and artificial intelligence in medicine and is the first institute of its kind in a hospital. Dr. Chang is the organizing chair of several Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (AIMed) meetings in the U.S. and abroad that will focus on artificial intelligence in healthcare and medicine. He intends to build a clinician-computer scientist interface to enhance all aspects of data science and artificial intelligence in health and medicine.

A prolific author, Dr. Chang is the chief editor of the textbook Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care and the past president-elect of the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society (PCICS). He is the chief editor of the textbook Heart Failure in Children and Young Adults. He is a regular reviewer for “Circulation,” “Pediatric Critical Care Medicine,” “Critical Care Medicine,” and numerous other journals.

Dr. Chang publishes and lectures widely on topics of big data and artificial intelligence in medicine, pediatric cardiac intensive care, heart failure, sudden cardiac death, adult congenital heart disease, and other aspects of congenital heart disease. He has served as program director for numerous large international conferences and symposia.

View Dr. Chang's Expert Witness Profile.

Alexander R. Marmureanu, MD, is the founding physician of California Heart & Lung Surgery Medical Center. He maintains a busy, active Cardiothoracic Surgery practice in Los Angeles with special expertise in the field of minimally invasive Cardiac, Thoracic, and Vascular Surgery for Heart and Lung conditions.

Background - Dr. Marmureanu completed his General Surgery Residency and a Research Fellowship at New York University Medical Center in New York City. He then continued his surgical training at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City where he was actively involved in the field of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery research. His Cardiothoracic Surgery Fellowship was completed at UCLA, where he subsequently joined the UCLA faculty as Clinical Instructor in the Department of Surgery. Dr. Marmureanu was then appointed Director of Thoracic Surgery at Century City Hospital, where he built a very successful Center for Thoracic Surgery.

Author, Speaker, Humanitarian - Dr. Marmureanu has authored numerous research papers and publications and is a member of multiple organizations and committees, both nationally and internationally. A sought-after speaker, he has been invited to deliver lectures and presentations on the benefits of cutting edge surgical techniques as well as the advantages of minimally invasive surgery for thoracic and cardiovascular patients. Active in both local and international charitable causes, Dr. Marmureanu donates his time by traveling to Eastern Europe to help train local surgeons both in the operating room and through lectures at educational forums.

View Dr. Marmureanu's Expert Witness Profile.

Andrew J. Manganaro, MD has been a board certified Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgeon for more than 25 years. He has experience in all areas of adult cardiac, vascular, and thoracic surgery, and has cared for more than 10,000 patients in his practice.

Litigation Support - Dr. Manganaro has more than 15 years of experience in medical expert opinions for both plaintiffs and defendants. His services include medical record review, written reports, depositions, and trial testimony as needed. He is licensed to practice in Ohio, Michigan, Delaware, New Mexico, Illinois, New York, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, and North Dakota.

Areas of Expertise:

Cardiac Surgery Pulmonary Surgery Esophageal Surgery

Trauma Surgery Vascular Surgery Endovascular Surgery