Dr. Poa trained at Northwestern University Medical School and performed residencies in Philadelphia and at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles where he was chief resident. He started college at the age of 15 and was the youngest boarded cardiothoracic surgeon in the US performing his first coronary bypass surgery at the age of 21. He is most known for his pioneering work in the fields of beating heart minimally invasive coronary bypass surgery, endoscopic cardiac surgery, mitral valvular repair, and thoracoscopic ablation surgery. He was one of the pioneers of epicardial ablation therapy and developed the thoracoscopic unilateral approach in the treatment of atrial fibrillation in 2002. Dr. Poa introduced endoscopic vein harvesting in California in 1997, performed the first off pump mitral valve repair in the western states in 2005, and the first to introduce endoscopic radial artery harvest in the western states in 2004. He has been involved in the teaching of closed pericardioscopic dissections as used in various treatments to heart disease including stem cell implantation, endoscopic CABG, TMR therapy, lead implantation, and valvular access. He presently is the Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Enloe Medical Center in Chico, CA and is Medical Director of Cardiothoracic surgery at Anaheim Memorial Medical Center in Orange County, California.

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