Heart to Heart: Canadian Cardiology in the Spotlight Unknown

Dr. Habibat Garuba, cardiologist at The Ottawa Hospital General Campus and assistant professor at the University of Ottawa, and Dr. Anne Marie Navar, cardiologist and associate professor of medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center, discuss the opportunity to improve risk stratification strategies for pregnant women. Cardiac complications in pregnancy, particularly hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, increase future CV risk dramatically. Pregnancy-related mortality is particularly higher among Black women in the United States (three times higher than for Caucasian women). Dr. Garuba talks about the IMPROVE Post-Partum Program at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, which is a combined initiative with the Canadian Women’s Heart Health Centre and the Cardiac Prevention & Rehab Division. Dr. Garuba also shares her experience completing an elective in Nigeria and how managing cardiovascular disease within this resource-limited setting shares many parallels to some of the challenges here among BIPOC communities.

In this episode, Dr. Husam Abdel-Qadir, Cardiologist and Scientist at Women’s College Hospital, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto and Adjunct Scientist, ICES – together with & Dr. Dinesh Thavendiranathan, Cardiologist and Scientist at Toronto General Hospital, Associate Professor of Medicine and Clinical Investigator and, Director of the Ted Rogers Program in Cardiotoxicity Prevention discuss the importance for all general cardiologists to develop expertise in cardio-oncology.
There is an increasing need to treat patients who have concomitant cardiovascular disease and cancer, and to care for patients who develop cardiotoxicity following cancer treatment. Considering that cardio-vascular disease is the second leading competing cause of death in cancer survivors, cardio-oncology is a field that can be embraced by community cardiologists in addition to expert cardiologists in urban academic settings.

Dr. Alexandra Bastiany and Dr. Roxana Mehran discuss the lack of representation of women in interventional cardiology, and the general lack of role models in cardiology for young black women. Dr. Bastiany shares her passion for interventional cardiology and how as a woman she is tuned in to the care gaps and diagnosis gaps of women with INOCA (ischemia with nonobstructive coronary arteries). Women make up a disproportionate portion of patients with INOCA, but their symptoms are often dismissed or downplayed, even though the incidence of major adverse cardiovascular events is comparable to obstructive CAD. 

In this episode, Dr. Simone Cowan, cardiologist at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, speaks with Dr. Clyde Yancy, Vice Dean, Diversity & Inclusion, and Chief, Division of Cardiology Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois.
Dr. Cowan and Dr. Yancy have a vibrant discussion about the new wealth of options available to care for individuals with heart failure. The experts touch on the importance of RCTs, studying heart failure agents in Black populations and, following Guidelines to develop care plans that are in place at the right time, in the right setting for the right patient.

In this episode, Dr. Marc Ruel, the Michael Pitfield Professor and Chairman, Head, and Endowed Chair of Research in the Division of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, speaks with Dr. Donna May Kimmaliardjuk, the first Inuk cardiac surgeon in Canada, as she is currently completing an advanced cardiac surgery fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic.
Dr. Kimmaliardjuk talks about her passion for cardiac surgery, improving techniques, the challenges of preventing, diagnosing, and treating cardiovascular disease in remote communities, and her career goals as one of Canada’s best and brightest young cardiac surgeons.

In this episode, Dr. Abhinav Sharma interviews Dr. Justin Ezekowitz, Co-Director of the Canadian Vigour Centre and Director of Cardiovascular Research at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Dr. Ezekowitz presents the Alberta Provincial Heart Failure Pathway, which aims to equalize HF care and improve treatment and outcomes.