Dr Horneffer became interested in health and Dr Horneffer left Hopkins in 1990 to take a fac- science at an early age. He was awarded a grant to study immunology at the prestigious Jackson Laboratory when he was just 16 and then continued his research in this field pub- lishing his first paper at age 19. As a junior in high school, he earned early acceptance to Yale College and after 2 years at Yale was ac- cepted to Johns Hopkins for medical school.
His interest in immunology led to work in the organ transplantation laboratories at Hopkins, where he gained experience in heart surgery as the field of heart and heart-lung transplan- tation was in its infancy. He was chosen to remain at Hopkins to do his residency, first in general surgery and ultimately cardio-thorac- ic surgery where he served as chief resident from 1989-1990. During his training at Hopkins, he was sent to France to train with the world renown valve repair specialist, Professor Alain Carpentier and also spent time in England doing heart and heart-lung transplants. On returning to Hopkins, he became the leading specialist in Valve repair in the region.
Dr Horneffer left Hopkins in 1990 to take a faculty position at Georgetown University Hospi- tal in Washington D.C.; and was recruited the following year to join a group of Hopkins car- diac surgeons who had started a new inde- pendent heart surgery program in Baltimore, Maryland. That practice was very successful and grew rapidly to be one of the busiest in the country. During his time in practice he conducted more than 4000 open heart pro- cedures. While in practice he also completed the Johns Hopkins Business School Graduate Certificate Program to gain experience in business organization.
In late 2007, he was asked to help with or- ganizing the clinical training of medical stu- dents who had enrolled into an M.D. pro- gram designed to bring medical education to underserved parts of the world. He was instrumental to reorganizing the curriculum and ultimately leading the institution as Ex- ecutive Dean through to successful accred- itation. Its graduates have become fully li- censed and practice in the US, Australia, liver it to places where such resources had previously been unavailable, compelled him to leave his primary practice and pur- sue this new-found passion. He formed a consultancy to help other institutions mod- ernize their approach to medical educa- tion, and also serves as Director for Medical Education Programs at Lecturio, an education technology company with a global distribu- tion network. He stills provides oversight and coverage to two rurally located heart-surgery centers in Maryland.
He has two grown children, one a pre-school teacher and the other, an energy sustainability expert who works in senior man- agement for a high-tech battery company. He lives with his wife on a farm in Maryland where they raise grass-fed beef and chickens and which he designed to operate fully off- grid using solar panels and a high efficiency wood stove to meet all their energy needs.