Benjamin Cruz Rodriguez, MD
- Cardiologist
- Assistant Professor of Medicine
During open enrollment, choose San Diego's best health care. Get started.
Benjamin Cruz Rodriguez, MD, is a board-certified cardiologist who specializes in treating patients with advanced heart failure, including those requiring mechanical circulatory support or heart transplantation.
As an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine, Dr. Cruz has experience in clinical research focused on right ventricular failure and valvulopathies (diseases of the cardiac valves) management after left ventricular assist device (LVADs), racial disparities in advanced heart failure therapies, cost-effectiveness analysis and cardiovascular effects of COVID-19. Moreover, Dr. Cruz is involved in clinical research in myocarditis, as well as conduction abnormalities after heart transplantation.
In addition to his clinical practice at UC San Diego Health, he practices at affiliated clinics and hospitals at El Centro and Brawley with an aim to increase the access to underserved communities to specialized cardiovascular care and advanced heart failure therapies.
Dr. Cruz completed his fellowship in advanced heart failure, mechanical circulatory support, and transplant cardiology at UC San Diego School of Medicine. He did his fellowship in cardiovascular medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, Texas, where he served as chief fellow. He also completed a fellowship in advanced heart failure, pulmonary hypertension, mechanical circulatory support, and transplant cardiology at University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Cruz completed his internal medicine residency at Methodist Dallas Medical Center, where he also served as chief resident. He earned his medical degree from University San Carlos de Guatemala and he also holds a master's degree in public health with focus on epidemiology from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.
Dr. Cruz is board certified in internal medicine, cardiovascular disease, echocardiography, advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology. He is a member of the American College of Cardiology, the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation and the Heart Failure Society of America.
In addition to English, Dr. Cruz is fluent in Spanish.
UC San Diego Health Links
For more information, see Heart Care.
We accept most major insurance plans at UC San Diego Health. Find out if your insurance is accepted.
For informational purposes only, a link to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Open Payments web page is provided here. The federal Physician Payments Sunshine Act requires that detailed information about payment and other payments of value worth over ten dollars ($10) from manufacturers of drugs, medical devices, and biologics to physicians and teaching hospitals be made available to the public.
View Open Payments Data for Dr. Cruz Rodriguez