News 2009

November 16, 2009: Stony Brook at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions. Dr. Smadar Kort presented the abstract entitled "Real Time Three-Dimensional Diastolic Stress Echocardiography: A New Approach for Assessing Diastolic Function" and moderated the session on "Echocardiography in the Evaluation of Systolic Function - Mechanistic Insights Through Strain and Evaluation of Dyssynchrony." Dr. Allen Jeremias moderated the session on "Catheter-Based Coronary Interventions: Complications and Practice Patterns."

November 10, 2009: Second year fellow, Melissa Daubert, MD, has been awarded a Fellowship Travel Grant by the American Heart Association’s Council on Clinical Cardiology to attend AHA’s Scientific Sessions 2009 in Orlando, Florida This grant will allow trainees to learn about grants, network and build relationships with senior investigators and AHA science mentors, receive guidance on career paths, and learn about opportunities for involvement within the AHA.

October 9, 2009: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has approved our application for a fellowship in Cardiac Electrophysiology. The first fellow will begin on July 1, 2010.

October 5, 2009: Heart Center researchers led by Luis Gruberg, MD have begun recruiting patients for an early-stage clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of adult stem cell therapy for patients who have just experienced their first acute myocardial infarction.

September 21, 2009: Dr. Smadar Kort has been invited to serve on the Editorial Board of the journal Echocardiography beginning January 2010.

September 14, 2009: In recognition of the educational value of our fellowship program, the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine has received approval from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) to expand our fellowship in Cardiovascular Disease from 4 to 5 positions per year.

July 14, 2009: Dr. David Brown was quoted in the Wall Street Journal in an article on atrial fibrillation.

July 6, 2009: Dr. Sei Iwai is the newest member of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. Dr. Iwai will be joining the section of cardiac electrophysiology as the Director of the Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology Fellowship Program and Director of the Complex Arrhythmia Ablation Program. Dr. Iwai is a graduate of Harvard College and Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. He trained in internal medicine at Columbia and in cardiology and cardiac electrophysiology at Cornell where he has been on the faculty for the last 8 years.

June 17, 2009: We are thrilled to welcome the 2010 fellows in cardiovascular disease: Puja Parikh, Jonathan Tardos, Gurtej Singh and Usman Khokhar.

June 9, 2009: Roger Fan, MD was named the recipient of the first Peter F. Cohn Excellence in Teaching Award at the annual fellow's graduation dinner.

June 2, 2009: Interventional cardiology fellow Gerard Connors, MD was awarded first place for his case presentation entitled "Double Double Coil and Trouble" which was presented at the 2009 Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) meeting.

May 8, 2009: Under the direction of Dr. Luis Gruberg, Stony Brook has been selected to participate in a new international clinical trial to evaluate the effect of adult stem cells on outcomes of patients presenting with large ST-elevation myocardial infarctions. Dr. Michael Poon will also be participating in the study by analyzing the ventricular function of enrolled patients with cardiac MR.

April 21, 2009: Eric Rashba, MD, director of electrophysiology, has been awarded an Empire Clinical Research Investigator Program (ECRIP) grant by New York State to study predictors of sudden death in patients with chronic kidney disease.

April 6, 2009: Third year fellow Robin Mathews, MD has been awarded a 2-year fellowship from the American Heart Association-Pharmaceutical Roundtable Outcomes Research Center at Duke University to pursue his interests in health care policy and outcomes research.

April 2, 2009: Dr. David Brown has been named a consultant to the Food and Drug Administration's Circulatory System Devices Panel of the Medical Devices Advisory Panel, Center for Devices and Radiologic Health in Rockville, Maryland.

March 30, 2009: Dr. David Brown has been named Editor-in-Chief of Heart International-an open access journal of cardiovascular medicine and research based in Pavia, Italy. This important new journal will publish accepted manuscripts within one month of submission allowing the most rapid dissemination of important results to the international cardiology community.

March 18, 2009: First year cardiology fellow, Will Chung, MD, has published a first author paper in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.

February 17, 2009: Bill Lawson MD, Director of Outcomes Research, and colleagues have 5 abstracts accepted for presentation at the American Heart Association 2009 Quality of Care and Outcomes Research in Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke Conference. This meeting will take place at in Washington D.C., April 23-25, 2009. The abstract titles are: Operator Characteristics Effecting Coronary Angioplasty Procedural Costs, One Year Durability of Enhanced External Counterpulsation Benefit in Improving Quality of Life and Reducing Health Care Costs, Does Enhanced External Counterpulsation Decrease Mortality Risk in Diabetics with End Stage Coronary Disease and Heart Failure?, Predictors of Hospitalization in End Stage Coronary Disease: The Effect of Enhanced External Counterpulsation and Prioritizing Coronary Care Unit Admissions: Consensus and Diversity

February 2, 2009: The results of the OAT-EP study were published in Circulation by Eric Rashba, MD and colleagues (Circulation 2009;119:779-787). This landmark study found no electrophysiologic benefit of opening persistently occluded infarct arteries in stable patients.

January 26, 2009: Dr. Eric Rashba and colleagues in the electrophysiology laboratory of the Stony Brook University Medical Center Heart Center performed the first robotic atrial fibrillation ablation procedure on Long Island with the newly acquired Hansen Robotic Catheter System.

January 15, 2009: Under the mentorship of Luis Gruberg, MD, Amy Lin has been selected as an Intel semi-finalist for 2009-2009. Amy's project,  "Effect of Body Mass Index on Early Outcomes in Female Patients Following Percutaneous Coronary Intervention," was one of 300 nationally to be selected to compete in the finals competition. The 40 finalists will be announced on January 28, 2009.

January 1, 2009: Dr. Smadar Kort was appointed to serve on the Committee on Academic Standing which oversees the academic and professional performance of students in the School of Medicine.

January 1, 2009: As of March 1, 2009, the cardiology fellowship will no longer involve rotations through St. Francis Hospital. The advanced imaging rotations at St. Francis will be replaced by equivalent rotations at Stony Brook University Medical Center.