Dr. Aarthi Sabanayagam

Dr. Sammy Elmariah is an interventional cardiologist who cares for adults with heart valve disease, coronary artery disease and congenital heart disease. He is an expert in transcatheter (minimally invasive) heart valve procedures, including transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), transcatheter edge-to-edge mitral valve repair (TEER or MitraClip) and transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR). He also specializes in assessing new medical devices for repairing or replacing the heart's tricuspid valve. The overall goal of Elmariah's research is to advance transcatheter and other surgical procedures for heart valve disease in order to maximize patient health and outcomes. He leads several clinical trials (studies with human volunteers) focused on valvular heart disease. These include landmark studies testing new transcatheter devices that treat heart valve disease without the need for open heart surgery. He and his research team are also investigating how to increase access to heart valve disease treatments and improve patient involvement in the management of their own care. And they are studying biomarkers (distinctive, measurable substances) in the blood that may help doctors determine the optimal time for individual patients to undergo heart valve procedures. His research team is funded by the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, U.S. Department of Defense and several industry partners. Elmariah earned his medical degree from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed a residency in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He completed fellowships in interventional cardiology and structural heart disease at Massachusetts General Hospital, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School. He also has a master of public health degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Sammy Elmariah is married to Dr. Sarina Elmariah, a dermatologist at UCSF, and they are the proud parents of two wonderful boys. Dr. Elmariah is highly rated in 12 conditions, according to our data. His top areas of expertise are Aortic Valve Stenosis, Mitral Stenosis, Patent Foramen Ovale, Aortic Valve Replacement, and Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR).

Dr. Theodore Abraham is a cardiologist who cares for adults with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM (heart muscle thickening that forces the heart to work harder than it should). He co-directs the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Clinic, a designated center of excellence for HCM care. HCM is the most common cause of sudden death in athletes, especially young athletes. Because the condition is usually inherited and often goes undiagnosed, he has a particular interest in evaluating patients with suspected HCM as well as family members of patients with the condition. Abraham's research focuses on risk prediction and early diagnosis of HCM. He uses advanced imaging and computational techniques to better assess heart health in athletes. He was on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography, Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Imaging, and Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging (a journal of the American Heart Association). He also serves as an expert on HCM for the British Medical Journal. Abraham earned his medical degree from the University of Mumbai in India. He completed a residency in internal medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, where he also completed a research fellowship in echocardiography. He completed a fellowship in clinical cardiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and a fellowship in advanced echocardiography at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where he stayed on as a consultant cardiologist. Before joining UCSF, he was a professor of medicine, radiology and radiological science at Johns Hopkins Medicine, where he also served as associate dean for research. There, he founded the Hopkins Heart Hype Program, a community outreach program screening high school and college athletes for heart disease and educating them about heart health and CPR. Abraham has received numerous research grants and awards for his work. He is president of the American Society of Echocardiography and was the founder-president of the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Medical Society. Abraham is part of the San Francisco Giants and UCSF Health's partnership to provide players and staff with top-tier medical care and promote community well-being. Dr. Abraham is highly rated in 17 conditions, according to our data. His top areas of expertise are Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM), Cardiomyopathy, Subvalvular Aortic Stenosis, and Familial Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy.

Dr. Melvin Scheinman, one of the pioneers of cardiac electrophysiology (the study of the heart's electrical activity), was the first to perform catheter ablation on humans. His team was instrumental in developing radiofrequency energy applications for cardiac arrhythmias. Scheinman and his colleagues also developed techniques for better understanding the mechanisms and treatment of cardiac rhythm disorders in patients with inappropriate sinus tachycardia – a condition in which resting heart rate is abnormally high – and to cure patients with automatic junctional tachycardia, in which one area of the heart is leading to a too-fast beat. Scheinman currently directs the cardiac genetic arrhythmia program, which is devoted to discovering new genes related to heart rhythm disorders. Scheinman grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and earned an undergraduate degree at Johns Hopkins University, where he graduated first in his class. His medical education included Albert Einstein College of Medicine, residency training at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and cardiology training at UCSF Medical Center. Dr. Scheinman is highly rated in 20 conditions, according to our data. His top areas of expertise are Arrhythmias, Heart Block, Ventricular Tachycardia, Cardiac Ablation, and Pacemaker Implantation.