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What excites you most about main the Nicklaus Kids’s Coronary heart Institute collectively?
Dr. Shyam Okay. Sathanandam: I’m impressed by the chance to create a program the place innovation is constructed into each step of care. When households stroll by our doorways, particularly these with untimely or medically fragile infants, they need to know there is no such thing as a problem too small or too complicated for us to tackle.
Dr. David Kalfa: What excites me is shaping a future the place kids not solely survive however thrive. The synergy between our experience permits us to reinvent what surgical and interventional coronary heart care can appear to be for the subsequent era.
Can every of you share your background and what drew you to pediatric coronary heart care?
Dr. Sathanandam: I grew up in Chennai, India, and skilled in pediatrics and superior cardiology at establishments together with the Kids’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Very early on, I knew I wished to work with the tiniest hearts, untimely and low-weight infants who require exact and artistic catheter-based interventions. Having the ability to repair a life-threatening coronary heart defect by a tiny tube, usually on the bedside within the NICU, is what retains me pushing boundaries every single day. Dr. Kalfa: My journey began in France, the place I earned each my medical diploma and a PhD in cardiovascular tissue engineering. I used to be drawn to surgical procedure not solely to save lots of lives at present however to find how kids can reside higher tomorrow. I’ve devoted my profession to essentially the most complicated neonatal coronary heart surgical procedures and to designing valves that develop as a baby grows to allow them to take pleasure in lengthy, lively lives with fewer operations.
The place do you every see the way forward for pediatric cardiovascular innovation?
Dr. Sathanandam: We’re getting into a brand new period of catheter-based therapies. Interventional cardiac MRI, lymphatic interventions, and digital and augmented-reality steering are increasing what will be achieved with out opening the chest. I’ve spent years growing procedures that may be carried out proper within the NICU, eliminating high-risk transports for fragile infants. These advances are solely the start of what we plan to perform right here.
Dr. Kalfa: Surgical procedure can also be evolving quickly. Robotics, synthetic intelligence, and regenerative tissue engineering are permitting us to personalize operations, restore hearts extra successfully, and even create new buildings when nature has not. The longer term is about precision and sturdiness, and we’re bringing that future to each little one we serve.
How will your teamwork change the face of congenital coronary heart care?
Dr. Sathanandam: Traditionally, interventional and surgical applications typically labored in parallel. Right here, we’re constructing a single, unified imaginative and prescient: one workforce deciding collectively what’s greatest for the kid. When all choices are on the desk, innovation accelerates and outcomes enhance.
Dr. Kalfa: Precisely. Collaboration is how transformation occurs. By combining Shyam’s experience in catheter-based options with my expertise in complicated surgical repairs, we get rid of silos and open new pathways. Collectively, we goal to make Nicklaus Kids’s a world vacation spot the place households know their little one has entry to essentially the most cutting-edge care in a single place.
What’s your shared mission as co-directors?
Dr. Sathanandam: To make sure that each household, irrespective of the place they arrive from or how complicated the analysis, receives world-class, compassionate care near house.
Dr. Kalfa: And to measure success not solely by survival statistics, though a 97.5 % heart-surgery survival price since 2018 locations us among the many nation’s greatest, but additionally in celebrating milestones: a primary day of faculty, a birthday, a future made attainable.
What do you hope households really feel after they meet you and your workforce?
Dr. Sathanandam: Hope. Confidence. Reduction. A way that their little one’s coronary heart is in the easiest arms.
Dr. Kalfa: And that they don’t seem to be alone. We’re companions in each step of the journey. Collectively, we’re dedicated to advancing care, advancing innovation, and advancing what is feasible, one little one, one household, and one heartbeat at a time.
DAVID KALFA, MD, PHD, CHIEF OF CARDIOVASCULAR SURGERY AND CO-DIRECTOR
SHYAM Okay. SATHANANDAM, MD, CHIEF OF CARDIOVASCULAR MEDICINE AND CO-DIRECTOR
NICKLAUS CHILDREN’S HEART INSTITUTE
3100 SW 62nd Avenue, Miami, FL 33155
12+ Outpatient Coronary heart Clinics All through South Florida
305-662-8301
Nicklauschildrens.org/Coronary heart
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