Fundamentals of Invasive and Interventional Cardiology

Sunil V. Rao, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, the Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories at the Durham VA Medical Center, and an Associate Editor of The American Heart Journal.'His main research interests deal with phase 2 clinical trials exploring the pharmacological and interventional therapies for acute coronary syndromes, as well as bleeding and blood transfusion complications among patients with ischemic heart disease.'Dr. Rao is the principal investigator (PI) of several NIH- and industry-funded interventional trials.'He also has an interest in quality assessment and improvement and has worked extensively with the American College of Cardiology's National Cardiovascular Data Registry. His research has been published in leading medical journals including the American Heart Journal, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, and JAMA.'His wife Caroline is a Duke-trained internist and dermatologist who practices Duke University Medical Center.'They have four daughters - Maya, Lily, Ava, and Grace. Dr. Cary Ward is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center and Co-director of the Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program. She did her medical training at the University of Virginia followed by training in internal medicine at University of Texas at Southwestern in Dallas. She then came to Duke as a fellow in cardiology where she did an additional year of training in adult congenital heart disease and adult congenital intervention. Her other interests include valvular heart disease and cardiac disease and pregnancy. Manesh Patel, MD received training in clinical research methods and outcomes research at the Duke Clinical Research Institute from 2003-2005. Dr. Patel's clinical and research interests are coronary and peripheral vascular disease and cardiovascular imaging including cardiac MRI/CT and vascular ultrasound. Dr. Patel began work with the American College of Cardiology Appropriate Use Task Force in 2005. Dr. Patel has subsequently been involved in authoring the Appropriate Use Criteria methodology (2005) and served as Chair of the ACC/AHA/SCAI writing group for the Appropriate Use Criteria for coronary revascularization (2009). Additionally, Dr. Patel has served on writing groups for several other appropriate use criteria and on think tanks aimed at improving the quality of cardiovascular imaging. Currently, Dr. Patel is the Vice--Chair of the AHA Committee on Diagnostic and Interventional Catheterization and serves as Assistant Director of the Duke University Cardiac Cath Lab and Director of Cath Lab Research. Dr. Patel is involved in quality improvement projects in the Duke Cath Lab involving both cardiac and peripheral vascular procedures.