Cardiology is the study of the heart. In medicine, cardiology is a branch of medicine that deals with disorders of the heart and the cardiovascular system. The field includes medical diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart defects, coronary artery disease, heart failure, valvular heart disease and electrophysiology. Physicians who specialize in this field of medicine are called cardiologists, a specialty of internal medicine. Pediatric cardiologists are pediatricians who specialize in cardiology. Physicians who specialize in cardiac surgery are called cardiothoracic surgeons or cardiac surgeons, a specialty of general surgery.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, Massachusetts is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. It was formed out of the 1996 merger of Beth Israel Hospital and New England Deaconess Hospital. Among independent teaching hospitals, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center consistently ranks in the top three recipients of biomedical research funding from the National Institutes of Health. Research funding totals nearly $200 million annually. BIDMC researchers run more than 850 active sponsored projects and 200 clinical trials. The Harvard-Thorndike General Clinical Research Center, the oldest clinical research laboratory in the United States, has been located on this site since 1973.
Cardiac electrophysiology is a branch of cardiology and basic science focusing on the electrical activities of the heart. The term is usually used in clinical context, to describe studies of such phenomena by invasive (intracardiac) catheter recording of spontaneous activity as well as of cardiac responses to programmed electrical stimulation - clinical cardiac electrophysiology. However, cardiac electrophysiology also encompasses basic research and translational research components. Specialists studying cardiac electrophysiology, either clinically or solely through research, are known as cardiac electrophysiologists.
Eugene Braunwald is an Austrian-born American cardiologist.
Clinical cardiac electrophysiology, is a branch of the medical specialty of cardiology and is concerned with the study and treatment of rhythm disorders of the heart. Cardiologists with expertise in this area are usually referred to as electrophysiologists. Electrophysiologists are trained in the mechanism, function, and performance of the electrical activities of the heart. Electrophysiologists work closely with other cardiologists and cardiac surgeons to assist or guide therapy for heart rhythm disturbances (arrhythmias). They are trained to perform interventional and surgical procedures to treat cardiac arrhythmia.
Michel Haïssaguerre is a French cardiologist and electrophysiologist. His investigations have been the basis for development of new markers and therapies for atrial and ventricular fibrillation.
Henrick Joan Joost Wellens, M.D., (1935–2020) was a Dutch cardiologist who is considered one of the founding fathers clinical cardiac electrophysiology - a discipline which enables patients with cardiac arrhythmias to have catheter electrode mapping and ablation.
Andrea Natale is an Italian-born American cardiologist and electrophysiologist, i.e. a heart rhythm specialist. Natale is known for his work in atrial fibrillation ablation, and he is currently the executive director at the Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia Institute.
Frank I. Marcus was an American cardiologist and Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, the author of more than 290 publications in peer-reviewed medical journals and of 90 book chapters. He was considered a world expert on arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC) and was a member of the Editorial/Scientific Board of 14 Cardiovascular Journals as well as a reviewer for 26 other medical publications.
Peter R. Kowey is an American cardiologist and medical researcher. He is Professor of Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University and holds the William Wikoff Smith Chair in Cardiovascular Research at Lankenau Institute for Medical Research.
Yaariv Khaykin is a Canadian cardiologist and a clinical researcher in the area of electrophysiology. He is the director of the Newmarket Electrophysiology Research Group at the Southlake Regional Health Centre. He has published research into complex ablation and pioneered cardiac ablation methods.
Shlomo Ben-Haimis an Israeli-born professor of medicine, a serial entrepreneur specializing in the fields of healthcare and biotech, and a philanthropist. He is the co-founder of Biosense Inc., Spectrum Dynamics LLC., Radiancy Inc., X-Technologies, Impulse Dynamics, InStent Inc., Disc-O-Tech Ltd. and EPD Solutions Ltd. He is the inventor of about 560 patents and patent applications.
Edmund Hiram Sonnenblick was an American medical researcher and cardiologist. His studies of the function of cardiac muscle cells during the 1960s shaped the basis of both cardiovascular physiology and the modern treatment of cardiovascular disease, making possible the development of ACE inhibitors. In 1962, he was also credited as the first person to image the heart muscle under scientifically-controlled conditions using the electron microscope. Though Sonnenblick's ideas about the relationship between the structure and function of the human heart today constitute medical-scientific commonsense, they were utterly novel at the time.
Donald S. Baim was a researcher and clinician in the field of interventional cardiology. Baim's primary research focused on coronary blood flow, catheter intervention in heart disease, and congestive heart failure. His work helped to shift the use of catheters from a purely diagnostic tool to a therapeutic tool. After receiving a medical degree from Yale and initial medical training, residency and a fellowship at Stanford University Medical Center, Baim spent the bulk of his career at Beth Israel Hospital and at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. In 1993, Baim founded the Beth Israel Hospital's Cardiovascular Data Analysis Center (CDAC) -- later to be named Harvard Clinical Research Institute (HCRI). Baim died of cancer in November 2009. In October 2016, HCRI changed its name to the Baim Institute for Clinical Research.
Arthur Jay Moss was an American cardiologist.
Charles Kaye Friedberg (1905–1972) was an American cardiologist, known for his medical textbook Diseases of the Heart, which was a standard reference in cardiology during the 1950s and 1960s.
Dr. Béla Merkely is a Hungarian interventional cardiologist and sports cardiologist, a university professor, director of Semmelweis University's Heart and Vascular Centre and the current rector of Semmelweis University since 1 July 2018.
Bruce B. Lerman is a cardiologist. He is the Hilda Altschul Master Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, and is chief of the Division of Cardiology and director of the Cardiac Electrophysiology Laboratory at Weill Cornell Medicine and the New York Presbyterian Hospital.
Günter Breithardt is a German physician, cardiologist and emeritus university professor. He is known for his research in the field of rhythmology, especially the diagnosis and pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapy of cardiac arrhythmias and acute cardiac death, in particular the identification of arrhythmia-triggering gene mutations. For 21 years he headed the Medical Clinic and Polyclinic C at Münster University Hospital. A number of his academic students hold university management and chief physician positions.
