Dr. Mark Milunski joined the Department of Medicine in the Cardiovascular Division as a Professor in January 2025. He earned his MD degree from the Albany Medical College of Union University in 1984, where he received several awards and honors for academic achievement, including election to Alpha Omega Alpha as a third-year medical student. He received his training in Internal Medicine at Duke University Medical Center and was a Fellow in Cardiovascular Diseases at WashU Medicine/Barnes Hospital in St. Louis where he conducted basic research in cardiac ultrasound and co-authored several manuscripts in the field of ultrasonic tissue characterization of myocardium. During this time, he acquired an interest and expertise in the treatment of heart failure and cardiac transplantation. After more than 20 years in the private practice of Cardiology in Orlando, Florida, he was named Chief of Cardiology for the Orlando Veterans Affairs Healthcare System in 2014 where he helped build a Cardiology Section and was part of a team that activated a new hospital, the first one in more than 30 years in the VA system.
Dr. Milunski assembled the Heart Failure Team at the Orlando VA Healthcare System which has demonstrated superior outcomes in the delivery of heart failure care through a multidisciplinary approach to care and which serves as a model for other teams system wide. He has helped to build a Cardiology Section that is now consistently in the top five busiest Cardiology Sections in the entire VA system. He serves on several committees on the local facility and VISN levels. He also serves on the National CART MAE committee which investigates cardiac catheterization laboratory adverse events and is a member of the Field Advisory Board of the National Cardiology Program Office and National Cardiology Chiefs Lead.
He is a Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine where he was a Founding Member of the college’s Curriculum Planning Committee and helped the college obtain its initial accreditation and is active in graduate medical education at the Resident and Fellow levels. He also helped develop and teach sections of the Second-Year course in cardiopulmonary pathophysiology. He is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, American College of Physicians, the American Heart Association and is a member of the Heart Failure Society of America. His clinical interests are the diagnosis and treatment of patients with acute and chronic heart failure, echocardiography, as well as general and consultative cardiology. His research interests are in new therapies for acute and chronic heart failure. His non-medical interests are his family, travel, camping, hiking and trekking (usually at high altitude), and reading history books.