Dr. Muniappan’s clinical activity includes all areas within general thoracic surgery, and he is experienced in caring for lung, airway, chest wall, mediastinal, diaphragmatic, and esophageal disorders. He is well versed in minimally invasive techniques and utilizes them whenever appropriate.
He has a special interest in pulmonary metastasectomy, airway surgery, chest wall resection, repair of tracheoesophageal fistula, and minimally invasive repair of pectus excavatum.
He lived in India, Canada, and Nigeria, before his family settled in San Jose, California. He attended Jesuit high school there and subsequently the University of California, Berkeley, where he majored in Molecular and Cell Biology with an emphasis in Immunology. Dr. Muniappan graduated from Tufts University School of Medicine in 2000.
He completed residencies in General Surgery (2007) and Cardiothoracic Surgery (2009) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). He also completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the MGH Transplantation Biology Research Center (2005) and mini-fellowships in clinical thoracic surgery at Mayo Clinic and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center before joining the faculty of MGH Division of Thoracic Surgery in 2010.
He serves as the director of the medical student summer scholars program in thoracic surgery, director of general thoracic surgery simulation, and co-leads the thoracic nodule ablation clinic at MGH. He is dedicated to the education of medical students and surgical residents. He received the MGH Department of Surgery faculty teaching award in 2019.
His research interests have focused on the management of complex general thoracic surgical problems such as tracheoesophageal fistula and he frequently collaborates on clinical research with colleagues in related specialties.