Dr. Bob Tahara, MD

Dr. Bob Tahara is the Director of Allegheny Vein & Vascular in Bradford, PA.  He maintains hospital privileges as Attending Vascular Surgeon at both  Meadville Medical Center in Meadville, PA and at Bradford Regional Medical Center, Bradford PA.  His current academic appointment is as Adjunct Assistant Professor of Surgery with the Department of Surgery/Division of Vascular Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA.  Dr. Tahara is an active member of the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS), the Outpatient Endovascular and Interventional Society (OEIS) the American Venous Forum (AVF), and the American Venous and Lymphatic Society (AVLS).  He is a Charter Member of the OEIS and serves in this national organization’s leadership.  Dr Tahara was recently designated as one of the inaugural Distinguished Fellows of OEIS.  He currently serves on the OEIS Board of Directors as Director representing Vascular Surgery and is the Technical Director of the OEIS National Registry.  Dr Tahara also serves on the AVLS Health Care Policy Committee.  In 2019, he was named to a 3 year term on the MEDCAC (Medicare Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee).

Originally from Niagara Falls, NY, he graduated with Honors from the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Medicine and subsequently served in the US Navy where he successfully graduated from US Navy Dive School and was a Diving Medical Officer supporting US Naval Special Operations in the Pacific. His surgical training was at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, NE.

Dr. Tahara has a busy full spectrum vascular and endovascular surgical practice with an emphasis on complicated venous disease and novel minimally invasive endovascular procedures for both arterial and venous disease. In addition to his clinical practice, Dr. Tahara has been extensively involved in teaching and research- previously directing a nationally accredited CME course for venous ultrasound, as an invited lecturer at numerous regional and national meetings, and as a mentor with his on-site venous training program. He is coauthor of multiple peer reviewed publications in the Journal of Vascular Surgery with an emphasis on complex venous disease. In the arterial realm, Dr Tahara developed the DAKOTA technique, a novel method to perform arterial intervention via accessing chronically occluded tibial arteries and presented the first description of this technique at the 2015 Society for Vascular Surgery annual meeting. He has been co-investigator for multiple national clinical trials, most recently the VIDIO trial which was published in the September 2017 Journal of Vascular Surgery -Venous and Lymphatic Disorders and was recognized as the JVS-VLD most cited paper in 2019.

Dr. Tahara’s current research interests center on angioplasty and intervention for chronic DVT and Post-thrombotic Syndrome, tibial/pedal access for treatment of critical limb ischemia, and substitution of fluoroscopy with duplex ultrasound for primary guidance during endovascular arterial interventions. He is an unrepentant tinkerer, an avid fly fisherman, an experienced gunsmith, and most recently a burgeoning custom watchmaker.