New York Vein Treatment Center

Before he ever touched a patient’s vein, Dr. Lev Khitin was untangling the molecular signals that make blood vessels react to injury, publishing in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences out of a research lab at UCSF. That grounding in hard science shaped everything that came after.

He trained in general surgery at Stanford and UCSF, vascular surgery at the Lahey Clinic, and cardiothoracic surgery at the Medical University of South Carolina, then spent the better part of a decade operating on hearts and aortas across Charleston, Birmingham, and Chicago, repairing aneurysms and publishing research on everything from Marfan syndrome to protecting the spinal cord during aortic surgery. Along the way, major pharmaceutical companies trusted him as principal investigator on national clinical trials, and he holds a surgical device patent of his own.

Then, in 2009, he made an unusual move for a cardiac surgeon: he left the hospital to build something smaller and more personal. New York Vein Treatment Center was founded on a simple idea: that circulatory disease didn’t need general anesthesia and a week of recovery to be treated well. It needed a surgeon who understood the vascular system down to the cellular level, and the patience to do that work in-office, one patient at a time.

Today, with over 20 years of experience and more than 20,000 procedures performed, Dr. Khitin is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American College of Phlebology, board certified in both general and thoracic surgery. But talk to his patients, and they won’t lead with the credentials. They’ll tell you that the man who once operated on the sickest hearts in America now spends his days making tired, aching legs feel young again.