Cardiovascular Medicine — Recent Activities

Basic Cardiovascular Disease Fellows:

Eliany Mejia-Lopez (right) will be CV’s new chief fellow, Pam Mason announced on February 5. Dr. Mejia-Lopez’s term of service begins on March 1.  Dr. Lopez will give a presentation at the upcoming annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology (April, Chicago) on “Association of Changes in Hemodynamic Indices of Contractile Function with Clinical Outcomes during Treatment of Acute Decompensated Heart Failure.”

Also, UVA cardiology fellows will represent the state of Virginia at the American College of Cardiology’s Fellows-In-Training Jeopardy Competition (at the ACC national meeting in April, Chicago). The team won the mid-Atlantic ACC competition.

Congratulations to Vijai Nagarajan, Vertilio Cornielle-Caamano and Michelle Ouellette (chief fellow with Lavone Smith), who were all nominated by the UVA medical students for the annual Mulholland Teaching Award. Michelle won last year so she’s not eligible again this year, but will be considered for a University Teaching award. Winners will be announced later in the spring.

Fellow Will Dresen, MD (profiled in this month’s Medicine Matters) has a recent publication and an upcoming presentation:

• Dresen W, Mason PK. Atrial flutter after surgical maze: incidence, diagnosis, and management. Current Opinion in Cardiology. 2016 Jan;31(1):57-63. doi: 10.1097/HCO.0000000000000239.
• “Differences in Point of Care Testing of the Activated Clotting Time Have Significant Implications for Ablation Procedures“ (poster presentation, with ten CV & UVA faculty/fellow co-authors). Heart Rhythm Society annual meeting (May 4-7, 2016; San Francisco)

And Travis Moss, MD, was selected as a finalist for two Young Investigator awards:

• Young Investigator Award finalist: American College of Cardiology 2016 Annual Meeting, April, Chicago: “The Impact of Incident Atrial Fibrillation in the Intensive Care Unit”
• Young Investigator Award finalist: International Society for Computerized Electrocardiology (annual meeting in April, Tucson, AZ). He will give a presentation on “Heart Rate Dynamics of Atrial Fibrillation in the Intensive Care Unit” by the International Society for Computerized Electrocardiography, which meets in April; he will give a presentation on April 15^th at the meeting.

Dr. Moss will also be giving a presentation this month in Orlando, at the Critical Care Congress: “Physiological Signatures of Subacute, Potentially Catastrophic Illnesses in the Intensive Care Unit”

– Vijai Nagarajan, MD, 3rd-year CV fellow: photo of him at meeting of American College of Cardiology’s Fellow in Training (FIT) section – he’s the one, says CV fellowship coordinator Anne Shipe, with “the dark glasses, blue blazer, and tie askew that is facing us.”

Fellows in the Advanced Programs:

Interventional:

– Luke Kohan, MD, will  be writing a blog for the tctmd.com website, for the “Fellows Forum” section, which will debut in early March. When published, it will be at: http://www.tctmd.com/fellowsforum/.

Luke will also be giving a presentation at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions annual meeting (Orlando, May) on “Robot vs. Human: The Effect of a Robot-Assisted PCI System on Procedure Time.” His co-authors are Michael Ragosta and Vijai Nagarajan.

Imaging:

This year’s imaging fellows – Pelbreton Balfour, Jorge Gonzalez and Peter Shaw (pictured left) co-authored the following article, published in December:

• Gonzalez JA, Balfour PC Jr, Shaw PW. The Cardiac Imaging Specialist: Pursuing Further Training. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 2015 Dec 8;66(22):2563-8.

And Pelbreton Balfour was a co-author on:

• Balfour PC Jr, Ruiz JM, Talavera GA, Allison MA, Rodriguez CJ. Cardiovascular Disease in Hispanics/Latinos in the United States. Journal of Latina/o Psychology. Published online Jan. 11, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/lat0000056.

Jorge Gonzalez gave a presentation on “Comparison of CMR DENSE strain imaging and 2D speckle tracking echocardiography for cardiac resynchronization therapy (crt) response” at the annual meeting of the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance, held in January in Los Angeles.

Peter Shaw won a scholarship to attend a regional meeting of the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance.

 – See more contributions from Imaging fellows below.

Cardiovascular Faculty:

Ellen Keeley, MD, received an American College of Physicians teaching award from UVA IM residents; it will be presented at March meeting of Virginia chapter of ACP. More here>>

Aditya Sharma’s article, “Portal Vein Thrombosis: When to Treat and How?,” which was co-authored by Gastroenterology faculty member Zachary Henry, MD, and Daisy Zhu, was published on-line in the November issue of the Journal of The Society of Vascular Medicine (JSVM). The print version appears in the February 2016 issue of JSVM, and was designated as the “Editor’s Choice” article for the month. These are articles, according to the editors, that are “specially selected to highlight the journal’s most noteworthy manuscripts.” (Sharma AM, Zhu D, Henry Z. Portal vein thrombosis: When to treat and how? Vasc Med. 2016 Feb;21(1):61-9. doi: 10.1177/1358863X15611224. Epub 2015 Nov 19.)

Dr. Sharma has also been appointed the CME editor for JSVM, one of the top-ranked journals in the field.

Cardiovascular Imaging Section: Recent & Upcoming Conference Presentations:

November 2015: Mid-Atlantic Capital Cardiology Symposium of the American College of Cardiology (Washington, DC):

• Balfour PC, Gonzalez J, Shaw PW, Perez MV, Izarnotegui V, Sobzack M, Watson DD, Beller GA, Bourque JM. High Frequency QRS Analysis has Incremental Diagnostic Accuracy Over ST-Segment Analysis Alone for the Detection of Myocardial Ischemia (poster presentation).
• Gonzalez J, Auger-Cornejo D, Chen X, Yang Y, Balfour PC, Shaw PW, Salerno M, Kramer CM, Epstein F and Bilchick K. CURE-SVD DENSE by Cardiac Magnetic Resonance (CMR) versus Speckle-Tracking Echocardiography (STE) a predictor of Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT) response in patients with Advanced Heart Failure (oral presentation and finalist research project for the Capital Young Investigator Award).
• Gonzalez J, Lamie C, Shaw PW, Balfour PC, Yang Y, Kramer CM, Salerno M, Hagspiel K and Norton P. Quality Improvement Project to Reduce Radiation Exposure and Contrast Use in Patients Undergoing Pre-Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) Evaluation by Computed Tomography (poster presentation).
• Gonzalez J, Shaw PW, Balfour PC, Flournoy C, Missel J, Hazarika S, Yang, Y, Norton P, Hagspiel K, Kramer CM, Shah N and Salerno, M. Cardiac CTA to Improve Cardiac Risk Stratification for Pre-Liver Transplantation (poster presentation)

January 2016: Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance annual meeting (Los Angeles, CA) :

• Poster presentations (CV faculty are in bold):
  • Gonzalez J, Li Y, Shaw PW, Balfour PC, Yang Y, Kay J, DiMaria J, Weltman A, Salerno M, Meyer CH, Epstein F, Kramer CM. Phosphocreatine recovery time constant (PCr) at peak exercise as a potential endpoint for clinical trials in PAD
  • Shaw PW, Yang Y, Chow K, Gonzalez J, Balfour PC, Meyer CH, Epstein F, Bourque JM, Salerno M, Kramer CM. Quantitative CMR perfusion imaging identifies reduced flow reserve in microvascular coronary artery disease
• Case presentations:
  • Jorge Gonzalez MD: (1) An Unusual Case of a Usual Suspect; (2) Comparison of CMR DENSE Strain Imaging and 2D Speckle Tracking Echocardiography for Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT) Response
• Presentations:
  • Christopher Kramer, MD: (1) Advancing Cardiovascular Care through Innovation, Teaching, and Community Engagement; (2) Pros and Cons of Observational Studies and Registries
  • Peter Shaw MD: Extracellular Volume By CMR is Associated with Serum biomarkers of Extracellular Matrix Turnover and Inflammation in Hypertensive Heart Disease
  • Michael Salerno MD, PhD: What’s Normal in Parametric Mapping

Upcoming – April 2016:

• Leigh A, Kaplan R, Swett K, Balfour PC, Kansal MM, Talavera GA, Perreira K, Blaha M, Benjamin E, Robertson R, Bhartnaga A, Rodriguez C. Association of the Intensity and Duration of Cigarette Smoking Exposure with Cardiac Structure and Function in Current Daily Smokers: The Echocardiographic Study of Hispanic/Latinos (ECHO-SOL). Poster presentation at: 65th Annual Scientific Session, American College of Cardiology (Chicago, IL; April 2-4, 2016).
• Luke Kohan, Michael Ragosta, Vijai Nagarajan: “Robot vs Human: The Effect of a Robot-Assisted PCI System on Procedure Time.” Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions Annual Scientific Meeting

CV Staff News:

• Tiffany Spencer organized a drive for care packages to sent to members of the armed forces this past December; she sent a DOM-wide email on 12/21/15, saying: “I am pleased to say that the troops received their goodies on Saturday. Thank you to all that donated.” John Hoover commented that “Tiffany did an outstanding job of bringing together the contributions of many with her own efforts and contribution.”
• Goldie Rawlings received a CME Lifesaver Award from the Office of Continuing Medical Education, which cited her “excellence in coordinating continuing education for physicians and healthcare professionals during the period July-Sept. 2015 by submitting at least 90% of CME conference documentation within 30 days of each event and 100% within the quarter.”

Filed Under: News and Notes

Tags: Cardiology