International Speakers
Prof. Uri Elkayam, Professor of Medicine/ Cardiology, USA
Uri Elkayam, MD is a Professor of Medicine and Director of Maternal Cardiology at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. His many leadership positions at USC have included Chief of Cardiology USC University Hospital and Director of the Heart Failure Program.
He has been involved as an investigator in more than 100 self-initiated; NIH and industry funded research projects and has played a leadership role in many seminal clinical trials on heart failure.
Dr. Elkayam’s publications include over 230 peer review articles and 80 book chapters. His clinical and research interests include acute and chronic heart failure, cardiovascular pharmacology, vascular biology, renal vasoregulation, and heart disease in pregnancy.
For more than 20 years Dr. Elkayam has directed an annual symposium on “Heart Failure-an update on therapy,” in Los Angeles and was the Chairman of the first “Pan American Heart Failure Congress” in 2012 in Panama City, Panama.
Dr Elkayam is also one of the most recognizable names in the world in the area of heart disease in pregnancy. Since his arrival at USC in 1981 he has run a clinical service of maternal cardiology. He published key articles in the area of pregnancy and valvular heard heart disease, prosthetic heart valves, Marfan syndrome, myocardial infarction, spontaneous coronary dissection and peripartum cardiomyopathy. In addition, he co-edited 3 editions of the books, “Cardiac Problems in Pregnancy” and is the editor of the soon to be published 4th edition of the book. He has been the Founder and Director of the biennial “International Congress on Cardiac Problems in Pregnancy (CPP)”.
Prof. Gatzoulis Michael, Professor of Cardiology , Congenital Heart Disease, UK
Michael A. Gatzoulis, MD, PhD, is the Academic Head of the Congenital Heart Centre and National Centre for Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) and the Clinical Lead for ACHD at the Royal Brompton Hospital and the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College, London.
Professor Gatzoulis, a graduate of the Aristotele University Medical School of Thessaloniki, Greece trained in London, England and Toronto, Canada. He returned to London in 1999, following the retirement of his predecessor Professor Jane Somerville, to run and expand one of the world’s largest clinical and training programmes in GUCH or ACHD.
Professor Gatzoulis has published extensively (more than 350 peer-reviewed contributions, including papers in the NEJM, Lancet, EHJ and Circulation) and edited/co-edited 10 textbooks including the leading title in this growing cardiovascular field “Diagnosis and Management of Adult Congenital Heart Disease”, now in its 3rd Edition and the 40th Edition of the iconic Grays Anatomy. Professor Gatzoulis’s research focus has been on mechanisms and prevention of heart failure and sudden cardiac death in CHD and the treatment of PAH.
Dr. Katherine Arendt, Anesthetist, USA
Dr. Katherine Arendt is the Chair of the Division of South Anesthesia and the Associate Practice Chair for the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, a department of 179 anesthesiologists and 320 nurse anesthetists. She completed medical school, an internship and a residency in Anesthesiology at Mayo Clinic, Rochester. She then completed an Obstetric Anesthesiology fellowship at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston and a Regional Anesthesiology fellowship at Mayo Clinic. She is an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, an American Board of Anesthesiology Associate Oral Board Examiner, and is on the Board of Directors of the Society for Obstetric Anesthesiology and Perinatology. She recently initiated the Obstetric Anesthesiology Fellowship program at Mayo Clinic and is the current Program Director.
Dr. Arendt’s research interests include the obstetric anesthesia management of labor and delivery for patients with complex cardiac disease. On this topic, she authors UpToDate® articles and delivers the American Society of Anesthesiologists Annual Meeting refresher course lecture. She also serves on the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) Pregnancy and Heart Disease Task Force to write the upcoming ACOG practice guidelines.
She is on the Scientific Planning Committee for the International Congress of Cardiac Problems in Pregnancy, a biennial multidisciplinary conference held throughout the world to coordinate the research, knowledge and practice of cardiologists, obstetricians, perinatologists and anesthesiologists in caring for pregnant women with complex cardiac disease.
Dr. Arendt has 45 peer-reviewed publications and has authored 8 book chapters in the field of Obstetric Anesthesiology including chapters in all three of the major Obstetric Anesthesiology and Anesthesiology texts, Chestnut’s Obstetric Anesthesia, Snider and Levinson’s Anesthesia for Obstetrics, and Miller’s Anesthesia, 9th edition. Dr. Arendt is passionate about the prevention of maternal morbidity and mortality and lectures throughout the world on this topic.
Dr David Williams, Obstetric Medicine, UK, PhD FRCP FRCOG
Dr David Williams is an obstetric physician at The Institute for Women’s Health, University College London Hospital. He leads a multi-disciplinary clinical team specialising in the management of acute and chronic medical disorders in pregnancy. His research group are investigating how maternal and paternal factors interact with the feto-placental unit to influence fetal growth and predispose women to gestational syndromes. Current projects are focussed on the pathophysiology and management of pre-eclampsia, acute fatty liver of pregnancy and alloimmune diseases of pregnancy. He is funded by the Medical Research Council to lead the Stamp Trial that investigated whether Pravastatin could ameliorate early-onset pre-eclampsia and to as principal investigator of the Dad’s Health Study, which is investigating whether epigenetic marks associated with paternal obesity influence fetal growth. He is chairman of the UK NICE guideline on intrapartum management of medical disorders in pregnancy.
