CLIMB Clinical Skills Training 2024

Emily Zeitler is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine and The Dartmouth Institute as well as clinical faculty at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in clinical cardiac electrophysiology. Dr. Zeitler graduated from Emory Medical School in 2008 with honors and received her clinical training in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. She completed clinical fellowships in cardiology and electrophysiology at Duke University. While at Duke University, Dr. Zeitler completed two years of training in clinical research as a T32 fellow at the Duke Clinical Research Institute and earned a Masters in Health Sciences. Dr. Zeitler has experience in medical device regulatory policy having worked previously at the US Food and Drug Administration as a medical device officer, and she remains interested and engaged in device regulatory policy and general heart rhythm-related health policy. Dr. Zeitler is deeply involved in cardiovascular outcomes research broadly with a particular interest in outcome disparities related to implantable medical devices and atrial fibrillation.

Andrea Sarkozy, M.D., Ph.D., served as Director of the Clinical Electrophysiology Program of the Heart Rhythm Management Center in the University Hospital of Brussels, Belgium between 2007 and 2012. Between 2013 and 2022 she was director of the Electrophysiology Program of the Cardiology department of the University Hospital of Antwerp and professor at the University of Antwerp. Since February 2023, she is the director of the Ventricular Arrhythmia and Sudden Death Management Unit of the Heart Rhythm Management Center of the University Hospital of Brussels and professor at the Free University of Brussels. Prof. Sarkozy is since 2017 Fellow of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA), between 2014 and 2017 she was board member of the EHRA, between 2017 and 2020 she was EHRA webinar course director and since 2022 she is scientific program co-chair of the EHRA congress. She is an internationally recognized expert in the field of cardiac electrophysiology.

She is author of >160 scientific publications in international peer-reviewed journals and co-author of several international guidelines in the field of Brugada syndrome and catheter ablation of complex cardiac arrhythmias. She serves as principal investigator and national clinical trial coordinator in multiple international multicenter trials and as reviewer in several international cardiology and electrophysiology journals.

Dr. Bonnie Ky is the Founder’s Professor of Cardio-Oncology and physician scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. She leads a highly active NIH- and AHA-funded clinical translational research program in cardio-oncology with the fundamental goals of advancing actionable science to improve the cardiovascular care of our cancer patients. She is the Principal Investigator of multiple cohort studies focused on determining individual patient risk, through detailed phenotyping of the social determinants of health, clinical, biologic markers, and imaging-derived measures of cardiac function, and clinical trials focused on mitigating cardiovascular risk. She is the Director of the Thalheimer Center for Cardio-Oncology, the Founding Director of the Penn Translational Cardio-Oncology Center of Excellence, and Director of the Penn Center for Quantitative Echocardiography. She is an invited member of many cardio-oncology expert consensus groups focused on advancing our understanding of cardiovascular disease in the growing cancer population within the NIH, FDA, American Society of Clinical Oncology, American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, and European Society of Cardiology. She is a standing member and Chair of the NIH Clinical Integrative Cardiovascular and Hematological Sciences Study Section and inaugural Chair of the ECOG-ACRIN Cardiotoxicity subcommittee. She is the Inaugural, founding Editor-in-Chief of JACC: CardioOncology, inducted member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians, member of the Sarnoff Research Committee, elected member of the American College of Cardiology Board of Trustees; and recipient of the International Cardio-Oncology Society Thomas Force Leadership Award and ECOG-ACRIN Young Investigator Award.

Professor Clara Saldarriaga FACC – FESC is the head of the cardiology program for Pontificia Bolivariana and the leader of the heart failure program for CardioVID clinic in University in Medellín – Colombia . She is the elected president for the Colombian Society of cardiology, The governor for Colombia´s ACC chapter and member of the Lancet Commission for cardiovascular disease in women. She is also principal investigator and steering committee for heart failure trials. 

Pam R. Taub, MD, FACC, FASPC is a board-certified cardiologist and internationally recognized expert in cardiometabolic disease.

She is the founding director of the Step Family Foundation Cardiac Rehabilitation and Wellness Center and Professor of Medicine at UC San Diego. Dr. Taub was responsible for all aspects of creating the center, which provides a comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation program for patients with established heart disease.   
 
Her clinical practice focuses on preventive cardiology, lipidology, as well as women’s cardiovascular health. Her research focuses on assessing the impact of behavioral, technological, and pharmacological interventions on cardiometabolic disease. Dr. Taub’s is a federally funded researcher with funding from: the National Institutes of Health (Principal Investigator on R01 grant), Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and American Heart Association. She is an experienced clinical trialist and serves on the executive committee for multiple international clinical trials focused on novel cardiovascular therapies.

Dr. Taub is widely published (with over 100 publications) and has authored high impact publications in top peer-reviewed journals including Cell Metabolism and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that have impacted clinical practice.

Dr. Taub holds multiple leadership positions in professional societies, serving as a fellow and board member for the American Society of Preventive Cardiology. She is a fellow and member of the American College of Cardiology Prevention of CV Disease Section Leadership Council. She also serves as the Vice-Chair of the American Heart Association Council Women in Cardiology Committee.

Dr. Wood completed her undergraduate and medical degrees in the combined B.A/M.D   program from the University of Missouri-Kansas City followed by training in internal medicine and cardiovascular medicine at  the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts where she served as Chief Medical Resident.  Dr. Wood joined the staff of Massachusetts General Hospital in 2000 where she held the Cathy E. Minehan Chair of Cardiovascular Disease in Women and co-directed the Corrigan Women’s Heart Health Program and the MGH Multidisciplinary SCAD Program. Dr. Wood served as the Associate Chief of Cardiology for Diversity and Health Equity.  Dr. Wood is a dedicated advocate for her patients and colleagues and has been involved in successful advocacy efforts at the state and national levels. She has led publications which have addressed the impact of social determinants of health on cardiovascular care, identified existing disparities in care has worked tirelessly to advance diversity in the field of cardiovascular medicine. Dr. Wood is on the Steering Committee of the iSCAD Registry and is the immediate-past Chair of the ACC Board of Governors and former Trustee of the ACC.  In July 2023, she was appointed Vice President and Chief Physician Executive of the Lee Health Heart Institute in Fort Myers, Florida.

Julia Grapsa has been a consultant cardiologist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust since March 2020. She leads the imaging team for tricuspid services. She is also a Reader for King’s College London. She was the founding editor in chief, for JACC Case Reports, under American College of Cardiology. She owns the foundation of JACC Case Reports Peer Review Mentoring Program and other initiatives such as DaVinci corner. She is now delighted to work under ESC journals as a senior editor for EHJ-IMP. She chairs the women in imaging task force under the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI), European Society of Cardiology (ESC). She was also a secretary (treasurer) for the ESC valvular heart disease council and prior to that, lead for the ESC clinical case gallery under ESC education. She is a fellow for the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), European Society of Cardiology (ESC), European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI) American Society of Echocardiography (ASE), American College of Cardiology (ACC). Her first consultant job was in Royal Papworth Hospital and Queen Elizabeth King’s Lynn NHS Foundation Trusts. She was the lead for the echocardiography department at Kingston Hospital. She was one of the first women to work for Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. From September 2018 she was the lead for the echocardiography department for Royal London Hospital and a consultant cardiologist for Bart’s Health NHS Trust. She was the first author of the British guidelines for echocardiography in pulmonary hypertension. She has participated in European and American position papers and guidelines. She has authored more than 140 peer reviewed publications and 5 book chapters. She participated in the CLIMB program under Women as One in 2021.

Marta Sitges is a non-invasive imaging cardiologist who completed her Degree in Medicine and Surgery in the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 1993. Since that time she has worked at the Hospital Clínic (Barcelona, Spain) as resident, research fellow and then as a permanent staff cardiologist. She also visited the Cardiovascular Imaging Center at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, USA, during a 1-year cardiac imaging fellowship. In 2003, she obtained her PhD degree from the Universitat de Barcelona, Spain, focusing on the effects of hormonal replacement therapy on vascular reactivity. Her main research interests currently consist in cardiac imaging, valvular heart disease and cardiac remodeling in heart failure and sport practice. She has published more than 400 peer reviewed papers (H index 70, i10 269), presented more than 400 lectures in National and International meetings, written 36 book chapters, received 60 grants, including H2020 projects and prizes and supervised 14 PhD thesis. She is also referee for most of the principal cardiovascular journals and a referral for echocardiography in a broad spectrum of clinical fields but mainly related to heart valve disease. She was certified in “Management of Integrated Health Systems” by the business school ESADE in 2012. She is the coordinator of the Sports Cardiology Group at Hospital Clinic and responsible of the program of Sports Cardiology at FC Barcelona since 2009. She has been staff cardiologist since 2001 at the Cardiovascular Institute in Hospital Clinic in Barcelona, Head of Cardiac Imaging from 2013 to 2015 and currently, Director of the Cardiovascular Institute since October 2015. She has been member of the Board of Directors since 2017, President and currently Past-President of the Heart Valve Society. She was appointed as Associate Professor in 2010 and Full Professor of Medicine at the University of Barcelona in 2020.
Orcid: orcid.org/0000-0003-1300-4732

Grace Lin is a Professor of Medicine, advanced heart failure cardiologist and echocardiographer at Mayo Clinic. In her role as Vice Chair of the Division of Circulatory Failure at Mayo Clinic she oversees clinical operations and enterprise practice standardization for heart failure. Her clinical expertise and academic interests are focused on cardiac amyloidosis and cardio-oncology. She is committed to improving healthcare access for individuals with cardiovascular disease through practice innovations in healthcare delivery including digital health and remote monitoring as well as new models of community and home-based care. Dr. Lin is currently serving as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow as a Visiting Scholar in the Congressional Budget Office.

Dr. Lin is a nationally recognized expert in cardiac amyloidosis and has served as a principal investigator in clinical trials for amyloid heart disease. She is the heart failure lead for the Mayo Echo Core Laboratory which directs imaging for multi-center heart failure clinical trials. Dr. Lin spearheaded a practice innovation to deliver in-home intermediate acuity care for acute decompensated heart failure as an alternative to hospitalization in partnership with the community para medicine group. She has advised several startup companies developing digital health tools for heart failure management and directs the heart failure remote monitoring program at Mayo Clinic. She is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the American Society of Echocardiography.

Dr. Lin received her undergraduate degree with honors and special honors from the University of Chicago and an MD from the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. She completed internal medicine residency and cardiology training at Mayo Clinic, and is board certified in echocardiography, cardiovascular diseases, and advanced heart failure and transplant. In 2021, she received an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where her team was winner of the 2021 Global New Ventures Competition for their digital health innovation to remotely screen for valvular heart disease.

Pr Thibaud Damy’s field of interest are Heart failure and Cardiac Amyloidosis, through to their diagnosis and treatment. His particular current interests are developpement of HF Nurses in France and improving CA diagnosing and treatment at the national level. He is working at the Hospital Henri Mondor, at Paris East Creteil University (UPEC) and at INSERM U955 (Clinical EPidemiology in Aging (CEPIA). He is leading the Referral Center for Cardiac Amyloidosis from the Cardiogen French Network /ERN. He and his team created a wide educational programme to improve the knowledge and quality of life of the patients (Amylo-PEP). He is leading the French National Amyloidosis Network gathering and the Healthcare European Amyloidosis Registry that has included around 4500 patients with amyloidoisis. He is a co-author of around 240 articles (~100 on amyloidosis). He is coordinating several websites : www.reseau-amylose.org, www.vaincrelinsuffisancecardiaque.org