The news of David’s passing in the early hours of Saturday 8 August 2026 has spread like a wildfire internationally and nationally, with multiple social media posts, tributes and testimonials from friends, colleagues, societies and collaborators around the world. A formidable fighter in everything he has done as a person and as a surgeon, he had lost this last fight against cancer. Our sincere condolences to his wife Kathleen, his relatives, friends and all those who were close to him.
David communicated the news of his illness with metastatic oesophageal cancer exactly five months ago – he wanted to have absolute discretion about the diagnosis. This contributed to the wide shock of his passing.
David Paul Taggart was born in Glasgow on 1 July 1958 where he grew up. He qualified from Glasgow University in 1981. After clinical training in Glasgow, Paris, Newcastle and London, under Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub and Mr Christopher Lincoln at the Royal Brompton Hospital, he was appointed as Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford in 1995 and Professor of Cardiovascular Surgery at the University of Oxford in 2004. He had two higher academic degrees, a MD awarded with Honours in 1989 and a PhD in 2000 from the University of Strathclyde on the effects of a platelet activating factor antagonist on the respiratory, myocardial and cerebral consequences of cardiopulmonary bypass.
He has conducted over 20 original scientific studies and clinical trials and authored over 350 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts in his field. He was a popular lecturer in high demand, with no less than 15 major national and international invited lectures delivered every year at learned societies to present his work. He had multiple awards, honours and accolades from colleagues in the cardiothoracic community around the world and was former president of the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery of Great Britain and Ireland.
David was an active and skilled cardiac surgeon with many contributions to the Cardiology and Cardiothoracic services at Oxford over the years. He was passionate about providing practice-changing robust comparative evidence of different treatments to inform policymakers and guidelines in cardiovascular disease, such as coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) versus percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).
For more than 20 years he successfully led the challenging ART (Arterial Revascularisation Trial) which received substantial competitive funding from the British Heart Foundation, the Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Health and Care Research. The trial randomised over 3100 patients allocated to single or bilateral internal thoracic artery grafts and has now been analysed with long-term follow-up of 15 years. The final outcomes are in press in a high impact scientific journal with a publication date of 26 August 2026. This was David’s swan song and his leadership of ART, as well as more than 30 high impact publications from the trial, has established a strong global network of investigators. He has also published extensively on the use of multiple arterial grafts, off-pump CABG, quality assessment and the use of external stents for saphenous vein bypass grafts.
David was a great advocate for patients and is widely attributed with developing the 'heart team' approach where cases are discussed within the multi-disciplinary team rather than individual clinicians making treatment decisions. He was not afraid to stand up for what he believed to be right and frequently questioned perceived wisdom or new findings to ensure that patients received best treatment. He has fought to maintain CABG as an accessible and highly effective treatment for advanced coronary disease and his influence in this area is recognised globally.
David had a particular attitude towards rules, best described by Douglas Bader a WW2 aviation hero, who said: 'Rules are for the guidance of wise men, and the blind obedience of fools.'
David will be greatly missed by colleagues, friends and collaborators across the world.