Healthcare Professionals

IHSA is proud to have the following clinicians working with and supporting us.

“The International Heart Spasm Alliance has an important role in the management of coronary vasospasms and microvascular angina by providing helpful information to affected patients. Moreover, their activities increase community awareness of these disabling disorders, since they are more common than currently realized.”

- Prof. John Beltrame

“I support education and research to improve the wellbeing of patients with ischaemic heart disease. Coronary spasm is under-recognised and an important cause of angina and sometimes heart attack. The International Heart Spasms Alliance is a welcome development.”

- Prof. Colin Berry

Australia

Prof. John F. Beltrame

John Beltrame is the Michell Professor of Medicine and Discipline Lead at the University of Adelaide. His multi-campus hospital roles include senior consultant cardiologist and Director of Research at the Central Adelaide Local Health Network. His PhD thesis was entitled ‘Vasomotor Reactivity Studies of Small and Large Coronary Arteries’, which involved clinical studies in Rome (Agostino Gemelli Policlinic), Kyoto (Kyoto University Hospital) and Adelaide (The Queen Elizabeth Hospital), with subsequent post-doctoral studies undertaken at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Dr. Tom Ford

Dr Tom Ford MBChB (Hons), PhD, FRCP Edin, FRACP, FCSANZ is a patient-centred interventional cardiologist on the Central Coast of NSW (Australia). He is the Australian national young ambassador to the European Association for PCI (EAPCI), senior clinical lecturer at the University of Newcastle, honorary clinical lecturer at University of Glasgow and the NSW cardiology representative to the RACP advanced training committee in cardiology.

Dr. Sivabaskari (Tharshy) Pasupathy

Dr. Tharshy Pasupathy is an early career research fellow at the University of Adelaide. Her PhD thesis titled “Novel Clinical Insights into Acute Myocardial Infarction”, explored Myocardial Infarction with Non-Obstructive Coronary Arteries (MINOCA) in detail and provided key insights into the relatively new clinical conundrum. She undertook a systematic review that established the term MINOCA to describe these patients, characterised the prevalence, clinical features, potential pathophysiological mechanisms and guarded prognosis of these patients.

Assoc. Prof. Kuljit Singh

Kuljit is an academic interventional cardiologist with active clinical, leadership, teaching, and research roles. I am working as an interventional cardiologist at the Gold Coast University Hospital and have an appointment of Associate Professor of Medicine at the Griffith University and Bond University. My active roles include; full time clinical interventional cardiology, program director of the cardiology advance training and interventional fellowship training, leading the structural interventional team at the GCUH…

Dr. Rosanna Tavella

A/Prof Rosanna Tavella is a cardiovascular outcomes researcher at the University of Adelaide and Clinical Data Manager for the Coronary Angiogram Database of South Australia (CADOSA) Registry, Central Adelaide Local Health Network, SA Health. Her PhD thesis examined health outcomes in patients undergoing coronary angiography and was awarded the Dean’s commendation for thesis excellence, with one of her international assessors ranking the thesis as amongst the top 5% he had reviewed.

Dr. Tara Sedlak

Dr. Tara Sedlak received her Doctor of Medicine, Internal Medicine Residency and Cardiology residency from the University of British Columbia. She also completed a fellowship at Cedar Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles, California on women’s heart health particularly focusing on chest pain syndromes in women with no significant coronary artery disease. Dr. Tara Sedlak practices General Cardiology at Vancouver General Hospital and BC Women’s Hospital and is the director of the Leslie Diamond Women’s Heart Health Clinic.

Dr. Peter Ong

Peter Ong is a consultant cardiologist from the Department of Cardiology and Angiology, Robert-Bosch-Hospital in Stuttgart, Germany. He is a board certified specialist in internal medicine and cardiology. Additional qualifications include intensive care medicine and interventional cardiology (percutaneous coronary interventions and transcatheter aortic valve implantation). His clinical research interest focuses on patients with angina and unobstructed coronary arteries.

Prof. Udo P. Sechtem

Udo Sechtem works as a senior research adviser at the Department of Cardiology and Angiology at Robert Bosch Hospital in Stuttgart, Germany. He also sees outpatients 3 days a week as a general cardiologist. He is a member of the Board of the German Heart Foundation and chairman of the Board of the German Foundation for Heart Research. For the European Society of Cardiology he serves as a member of the Nominating and the Declaration of Interest committees.

Prof. Paolo Camici

Professor Camici graduated in Medicine and Surgery in 1974 at the University of Pisa where he specialized in Cardiology and Nuclear Medicine. He moved to the UK in 1991 and up to April 2010, he was Professor of Cardiovascular Pathophysiology and Consultant Cardiologist at Hammersmith Hospital in London that is part of Imperial College School of Medicine.

Prof. Filippo Crea

Filippo Crea was born in Cosenza, Italy on 19 September 1953. He graduated from Pisa Medical School with full honours in 1977 and passed the Postgraduate Boards in both Pulmonary and Cardiovascular Diseases, again with full honours, at Pisa Medical School in 1980 and 1983 respectively. During the whole of 1984 he was Research Fellow at the Division of Cardiology of the University of Florida, directed by Professor Richard C. Conti.

Dr. Rocco A. Montone

Rocco A. Montone was born in Basilicata, Italy, on December 15th, 1983. He graduated from Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome with full honours in 2008 and passed the Postgraduate Board in Cardiology with full honours at the same University in 2015. He got a PhD in Cellular, Molecular and Clinical Research in Cardiology in 2020 and a Master of Sciences in Intensive Cardiac Care in 2021 both under the supervision of Prof. Filippo Crea.

Prof. Hiroaki Shimokawa

Dr. Shimokawa graduated from Kyushu University in 1979 and obtained MD and PhD degrees at the University. He studied at the Mayo Clinic in 1985-1987 and was appointed as an assistant professor at Kyushu University in 1991, and then associate professor in 1995. In 2005, he was appointed as the professor and chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Tohoku University.

Prof. Angela Maas

Angela Maas, MD, PhD is a clinical cardiologist since 1988 and has developed a main interest in heart disease in women over the past decades. She established the first outpatient clinic for women in the Netherlands in 2003. Since 2012 she holds a chair in Cardiology for women at the Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Assoc. Prof. Yolande Appelman

Associate Professor Yolande Appelman is an interventional cardiologist in Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Former head of the catherization laboratory location VUmc. Yolande was the initiator and first chair of: Working group on Gender of the Dutch Society of Cardiology (NVVC) (2008-2013) and Thinktank of Gender&Health VUmc (2016- ). In the Netherlands, she is one of the ambassadors on gender and CVD. Yolande is a well-known public figure contributing as a professional advisor to the media.

Prof. Javier Escaned

Prof. Javier Escaned is Head of the Interventional Cardiology Section at Hospital Clinico San Carlos / Complutense University (Madrid, Spain). He trained in the United Kingdom (Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Birmingham and Walsgrave Hospital, Coventry) and The Netherlands (Thoraxcenter / Rotterdam) where he obtained his PhD degree in 1994. He is author of over 450 indexed scientific articles (h-index 67).

Prof. Colin Berry

Colin Berry is Professor of Cardiology and Imaging in the University of Glasgow and Consultant Cardiologist in the NHS Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and Golden Jubilee National Hospital in Glasgow, where he is also Director of Research. He is a member of the COVADIS international scientific consortium that supports research into small vessel disease.

Prof. Vijay Kunadian

Dr. Kunadian is an academic consultant interventional cardiologist based at Newcastle University and Freeman Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Dr. Kunadian completed all her cardiology training in the North East of England. She undertook an international academic fellowship in cardiology at the TIMI/PERFUSE Study group, Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston MA.

Prof. Mamas Mamas

Professor Mamas Mamas trained in Medicine at the University of Oxford, completing his clinical training in 2000. He is a Professor of Cardiology at Keele University and is a practicing interventional cardiologist. Professor Mamas is an Associate Editor of Circulation Cardiovascular Interventions and a board member of the European Association of Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions, European Society of Cardiology.

Prof. Anthony Mathur

Anthony is a Professor of Cardiology at Queen Mary University of London and Director for Interventional Cardiology at Barts Health. He is also an adjunct Professor for the Department of Medicine, Yale, and an Honorary Professor at University College London and Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. Anthony sits on several international advisory boards, ranging from academic (European Society of Cardiology) to charity (Heart Cells Foundation).

Prof. Divaka Perera

Divaka Perera is a Consultant Cardiologist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital and Professor of Interventional Cardiology. He specialises in coronary and microcirculatory physiology across a range of conditions. He has applied these techniques to refine diagnostic tests for INOCA and develop therapies tailored to a patient’s specific underlying condition.

Prof. Roby Rakhit

Consultant Interventional Cardiologist Royal Free Hospital and Honorary Professor, of Cardiology, Institute of Cardiovascular Science, UCL. Senior consultant interventional cardiologist and currently divisional director of Cardiovascular services at the Royal Free hospital. Qualified from Charing Cross & Westminster Medical School (Imperial College) with general cardiology and interventional training in London and Switzerland.

Dr. Aish Sinha

Cardiology Registrar and MRC Clinical Research Fellow at GSTT and KCL. Undertaking a clinical study under the supervision of Professor Divaka Perera to understand the mechanisms underlying coronary microvascular disease.

Dr. Michel Corban

Michel T. Corban, MD, FACC, FSCAI, is an Interventional Cardiologist at Banner University Medical Center Tucson, and Assistant Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) in the Cardiology Division, Internal Medicine Department, at the University of Arizona College of Medicine Tucson, Arizona, USA. Dr. Corban received his MD degree from the American University of Beirut in Beirut, Lebanon.

Prof. Amir Lerman

Amir Lerman, MD. is an endowed named Barbara Lips professor of medicine and a consultant in the department of cardiovascular disease at the Mayo graduate school of medicine. Prof. Lerman serves as an associate chair of the department of Cardiovascular medicine and the Director of the Mayo Clinic cardiovascular research center and the medical director of the chest pain and coronary physiology clinic.

Prof. Roxana Mehran

Roxana Mehran, MD, FACC, FACP, FCCP, FESC, FAHA, MSCAI; Mount Sinai Professor in Cardiovascular Clinical Research and Outcomes; Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) and Population Health Science and Policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is an internationally renowned interventional cardiologist, and clinical research expert in the field of cardiovascular disease.

Prof. Noel Bairey Merz

C. Noel Bairey Merz, MD, is Director of the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center, the Linda Joy Pollin Women’s Heart Health Program, the Erika J. Glazer Women’s Heart Research Initiative, and the Preventive Cardiac Center at the Smidt Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute. She also is Professor of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Dr. Bairey Merz’s research interests include women and cardiovascular disease, mental stress and heart disease, the role of […]

Assist. Prof. Purvi Parwani

Dr. Purvi Parwani is an assistant professor of medicine and director of women’s heart clinic at Loma Linda University Health, Loma Linda, California, USA. Dr. Parwani is passionate about cardiac imaging particularly cardiac MRI and echocardiography. Her clinical interest involves diagnosis of womens’ cardiovascular disease using advanced imaging techniques.

Prof. Carl Pepine

Dr. Pepine is an internationally recognized cardiologist and distinguished researcher with many active research grants and contract awards. His career has focused on improving our understanding of ischemic heart disease (IHD) and underlying mechanisms, focusing on IHD among women. He has been, or is currently, principal investigator of many NIH- and industry-funded research projects on cardiovascular disease in women, IHD, hypertension, heart failure, and cell-based therapy, with continuous peer-reviewed federal research funding (DoD, NIH, VA Merit) for over 40 years.

Dr. Habib Samady

Habib Samady, MD, is an interventional cardiologist and clinical service line leader for NGMC’s Heart & Vascular Program. In his current role, Dr. Samady works with physicians, administrators, and frontline staff to oversee all clinical and administrative operations of NGMC’s Heart & Vascular Service Line, which includes ensuring clinical quality, streamlining patient care, and advancing services.

Assoc. Prof. Jennifer A. Tremmel

Dr. Jennifer A Tremmel is an Associate Professor of Medicine (Cardiovascular) at Stanford, where she works as an interventional cardiologist. She completed her undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Iowa and did her residency in Internal Medicine at Dartmouth. Prior to coming to Stanford for fellowship, she completed a Maters in Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. At Stanford, she did fellowships in general cardiology, preventive cardiology, and interventional cardiology.

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CORONARY VASOSPASM MICROVASCULAR ANGINA

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