Parallax by Ankur Kalra

In 2020, women still only represent 16% of editorial boards1. US Cardiology Review journal, has recently seen a 7-fold increase in female editorial board members in response to journal-based strategic initiatives and the stellar work of USC editorial board leadership, Ankur Kalra (Editor in Chief) and Bill Gogas (Deputy Editor in Chief), who were keen to drive this change. With thanks to Dr Anasta...

One of the first things painted by the young Mike Gibson, today Professor of Medicine at Harvard, researcher and interventional cardiologist, was a cloud. Years later while painting angiograms Dr Gibson came up with the idea of myocardial blush: The blush was that cloud of dye in the heart muscle. In this episode Mike opens up about his childhood in Stilwell, Oklahoma. Ankur and Mike discuss how t...

In this week’s episode Ankur Kalra asks Dr Suzanne J Baron, Director of Interventional Cardiovascular Research at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center: How do we measure the value of a novel technology? During her interventional cardiology fellowship, Dr Baron became fascinated by the implementation of novel technologies. She earned her degree in Clinical Epidemiology and spent a year working at the FD...

In this week’s Parallax, host Ankur Kalra is joined by Charles (Chuck) Simonton, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Abiomed. Chuck talks about how his father’s leadership and service as a Methodist minister inspired him to become a doctor. He recalls the dawn of interventional cardiology: the birth of angioplasty and stenting. Drawing from his experiences as a trialist who worked with som...

Martha Gulati, Professor of Medicine and the Chief of Cardiology at the University of Arizona joins Ankur Kalra to continue the important conversation on how the cardiovascular community can stand up against sexism. After the #MedBikini campaign provoked by a misogynistic study that scrutinized female doctors’ social media posts, this week’s episode is about creating a safer environment for female...

This week’s guest, Prof Roxana Mehran, Professor of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Founding Director of Women as One, is a phenomenon in interventional cardiology. Her pioneering work as clinician, trialist and advocate is well known within the community. In this episode we learn what makes Roxana tick and what were the odds she had to defy as an immigrant from Iran to fulfil her ‘impossible dream’....

This week’s guest is Dr Laura Mauri who became Vice President of Global Clinical Research and Analytics at Medtronic in 2018 after an illustrious career in academic medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr Kalra asks Dr Mauri about early influences and her traineeship with legendary interventionalists, the late Donald Baim and Richard Kuntz. Dr Mauri talks openly abo...

In the early days of the Black Lives Matter movement, a group of internal medicine residents posed a question: What can we do about racial disparity within our institution? Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Health Equity Committee decided to confront the status quo by asking: How is racism on a structural level present within our walls? Ankur Kalra’s guests Michelle Morse (Founding Co-Director of Equ...

Heart surgery is not the best option for every patient suffering from structural heart disease. This was recognized by interventional cardiologist Anmar Kanaa’N and cardiac surgeon Joseph Lahorra who decided to unify their skillsets and bring the Structural Heart Program to life. Their vision was to offer patients with heart valve diseases all available options at Cleveland Clinic’s Akron General....

The State of Ohio reported its first coronavirus cases on March 9. Prior to that, on February 28, the Cleveland Clinic announced that they are prepared to open 1,000 additional hospital beds if needed. Ohio was one of the states to follow recommendations and intervene quickly. Ankur Kalra asks Grant W Reed, Director of the Cleveland Clinic’s STEMI program, to reflect on the actions they took and t...

This week Ankur Kalra talks with Lisa Rosenbaum, national correspondent for The New England Journal of Medicine and cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Lisa Rosenbaum has been writing extensively about the human face of medicine. Her articles have been widely circulated by publications like The New York Times, The New Yorker and The New England Journal of Medicine. In this edition of Par...

A week after Jag Singh had tested positive for COVID-19, he became a patient in his hospital’s intensive care unit. This week he joins Ankur Kalra, MD to tell us about his journey as a clinician-scientist. Jagmeet P Singh, a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, a renowned Clinical Trialist, and the past Clinical Chief of Cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital joins Ankur Kalra fo...

“It’s a tsunami not just a wave. The worst tsunami you can imagine” Prof Michele Senni is Director of Cardiology at Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital, Bergamo Italy. He contracted COVID-19 himself and in this latest podcast he meets with Ankur Kalra, MD to discuss his personal experience in dealing with patients and COVID-19 in Europe’s outbreak epicentre. Hear them discuss the burden on healthcare, pa...

“We are at war with a pandemic and the enemy is not each other, it’s the virus.” In this latest episode, Ankur Kalra, MD meets with Andrew Sauer, MD, co-author of upcoming paper in US Cardiology Review on COVID-19 and Cardiovascular Disease that provides a concise and current summary of cardiovascular complications from COVID-19. Hear them discuss the latest issues surrounding the pandemic, the kn...

In these unprecedented times, we provide an early release episode to gain insight on dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic from Deputy Editor in Chief of US Cardiology Review, a BDG interventional cardiologist, Bill Gogas, MD, PhD practising in East Asia. Hear Bill’s take on how East Asia responded to and successfully managed the pandemic and how they are now seeing a significant reduction in cases o...

We can count on our fingertips how many “interventional intensivist” exist in the US. In this episode Ankur Kalra, MD meets with Dr Ann Gage, Cleveland Clinic’s first “interventional intensivist”. She discusses her unique skill set, what it means to be an interventionalist in the cath lab but also an expert in cardiovascular intensive care and advocates why such a unique skill set and critical car...

Dr Cavalcante meets with Ankur Kalra, MD to discuss his recent review published in US Cardiology Review 13.2; on a new aortic stenosis staging system that has important implications for clinical outcomes following aortic valve replacements to aid the treatment of aortic stenosis. Listen to this, as well as an overview on his interesting childhood and his views on the future of cardiac imaging to t...

The first female cardiac surgeon qualified in the 1960’s. Today there are only 4.5% women in cardiology and only 4% in thoracic surgery. Ankur Kalra meets with Dr Kendra Grubb, the first women to be trained at the University of Virginia, US, on cardiothoracic surgery and the 250th board certified women in thoracic surgery. Her recent post on social media went viral. It was a photo of an all-women...

In our final episode of the year, Ankur has an long conversation with Sukh Nijjer from Imperial College London about the most impactful, exciting and controversial clinical trials of 2019. Sukh and Ankur also discuss how these trials might change practice in the future, and how practice patterns and decisions differ between the US and the UK. In light of an emerging trend of shared decision making...

Recorded before the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions 2019, Ankur is joined by Rasha K Al-Lamee, Interventional Cardiologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in London and Study Director of the Objective Randomised Blinded Investigation with Optimal Medical Therapy of Angioplasty in Stable Angina (ORBITA) trial. Rasha talks about how she got into academia, the significan...

This week, Ankur spoke with Ajay J Kirtane on why he became a cardiologist, how he fell into academic research, and why the cardiology specialty is heavy with people of Indian origin. Ajay also talks about how he has negotiated between competing priorities in clinical and academic work, and how he manages fatherhood with a busy career. Ahead of the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 20...

How did Gregg from Cleveland, Ohio become Gregg W Stone MD, world-leading interventional cardiologist and clinical trialist? This week, Ankur had the pleasure of speaking to Gregg about his personal and professional journey through the ‘golden years’ of interventional cardiology. Gregg also shares his tips on how to progress from clinical practice into academic research, and what it takes to be a...

Recorded on site at TCT, COAPT investigator Dr Neal S Kleiman and Ankur discuss the realities of establishing an academic career as an interventional cardiologist. Neal explains why it is important to wear multiple hats and balance academia with a clinical presence. Digging more into the practicalities of everyday work-life, Neal reflects on the challenges of reporting to multiple bosses who have...

13: 2/2 Srihari S Naidu on Work-Life Balance: How to get it right by Radcliffe Cardiology

Srihari S Naidu shares his career tips for young, ambitious cardiologists and what he has learnt about mentorship from his numerous leadership positions. Hari elaborates on the different types of mentorship, the importance of developing non-academic skills, why you should focus on your strengths rather than weaknesses, and the fickle art of managing one’s public/private personas as a young cardiol...