Lifespan has recruited a prominent Boston surgeon, Dr. Frank W. Sellke, to head its division of cardiothoracic surgery, a move the hospital group says will boost its stature, introduce new types of research and heart care to the state and improve the quality of cardiac surgery.

Sellke, who started Monday, was the chief of cardiothoracic surgery and research at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School. His $2 million in grant funding will gradually be transferred to his new base in Providence, probably creating new jobs.

But Sellke is no stranger to Rhode Island. He was instrumental in building the cardiac-surgery program at Landmark Medical Center, performed the first heart surgery there and monitored its quality. Landmark’s program, fiercely opposed by Lifespan, lasted only three years, closing in May because it had too few patients.

“It’s sort of ironic,” Sellke remarked yesterday. “We were antagonists for awhile. Now we’re all friends.” Another former Landmark heart surgeon, Dr. Michael A. Coady, has been practicing at Miriam and is part of the six-surgeon group that Sellke now heads.

Dr. Arthur Klein, Lifespan’s senior vice president and chief physician officer, said that Sellke’s recruitment was already creating a buzz in medical circles and would help Lifespan attract top talent to other key positions. “Star power attracts star power,” Klein said. “His national prominence adds to our national prominence.”

Sellke will also serve as chief of cardiovascular surgery at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

Sellke, 52, said he left Beth Israel after 18½ years because he disagreed with the hospital’s recent direction, which he said was moving away from its academic mission. Lifespan, in contrast, hopes to bolster its academic stature with additional research and to start, in a few years, a residency program in cardiovascular surgery.

Sellke said some colleagues were surprised that he left Boston for Providence. “I gave up a lot of stature. I had a great job in Boston,” he said. “Was it the right move? There was no other choice. It was definitely the right decision.”

His new position, Sellke said, gives him the chance to make Life-span a “world-class research institute.” He will also work on improving quality.

Sellke said there’s “room for improvement” in Lifespan’s cardiac-surgery program, particularly in the care provided after surgery and in providing statins, aspirin and beta blockers to heart patients when appropriate.

Nationally, cardiac-bypass surgeries have been declining as less-invasive treatments gain in popularity, and that’s one of the reasons Landmark’s program failed. Rhode Island and Miriam hospitals will perform about 700 heart surgeries this year, down from previous years. But hospitals that pursue newer, specialized heart surgeries are seeing their numbers increase, Klein said.

With Sellke’s appointment, Lifespan intends to beef up its programs in aortic surgery, correcting heart-rhythm abnormalities, and remodeling the left ventricle to treat heart failure. Additionally, the hospitals hope to introduce left-ventricular-assist devices, surgically implanted pumps that help the heart function in patients awaiting transplants.

Sellke also expects to “jump-start basic research” on cardiovascular issues in Rhode Island. The National Institutes of Health, he said, awards only 15 grants in cardiovascular research nationwide –– and Sellke holds 3 of them. The author of two textbooks and working on his third, Sellke works at the molecular level in basic research, with human subjects in clinical trials and with pharmaceutical companies in drug studies, an unusual breadth of expertise.

His research focuses on two areas: blood vessel expansion, contraction and permeability, and promoting the growth of new blood vessels around the heart to bypass blocked vessels.

In addition to “wonderful lab space” already set aside for Sellke, Klein said, Lifespan intends to build an additional 5,000 square feet for Sellke’s research.

Sellke’s arrival also marks, at long last, the integration of the heart surgery programs at Miriam and Rhode Island hospitals. Uniting those two groups was envisioned as part of the merger that created Lifespan in 1994. But “cultural differences,” Klein said, had kept the two groups separate all these years. No one has held the position of chief of cardiovascular surgery for both hospitals since Dr. Richard Hopkins left in December 2006.

The heart surgeons have now been organized into a single group under Sellke. For the time being, however, they will continue to operate at both hospitals.

Sellke said he bought a condominium on Benefit Street. He and his wife, Amy, have four children –– two in college, one in high school and one in first grade. He says his family will join him in Providence after his high-schooler graduates.

ffreyer@projo.com