LVAD: Left Ventricular Assist Device with Drs. Jason Guichard and David McGiffin

The LVAD (left ventricular assist device) has become something of a necessity for treating patients who are waiting on the transplant list - some of whom could deteriorate before receiving that life-saving operation. Dr. Alain Bouchard and Dr. Mustafa Ahmed are joined by Dr. Jason Guichard of South Carolina and Dr. David McGiffin of Australia to discuss LVAD and so-called "destination therapy."

About the Team

Dr. Alain Bouchard is a clinical cardiologist at Cardiology Specialists of Birmingham, AL. He is a native of Quebec, Canada and trained in Internal Medicine at McGill University in Montreal. He continued as a Research Fellow at the Montreal Heart Institute. He did a clinical cardiology fellowship at the University of California in San Francisco. He joined the faculty at the University of Alabama Birmingham from 1986 to 1990. He worked at CardiologyPC and Baptist Medical Center at Princeton from 1990-2019. He is now part of the Cardiology Specialists of Birmingham at St. Vincent’s Health System, Ascension.

Dr. Mustafa Ahmed is a Structural Heart Specialist, Interventional Cardiologist and Scientist, and is the director of the Structural Heart Disease Program at UAB. He is a leading performer of minimally invasive heart procedures, including the Mitraclip procedure. He is credited with several first of their kind procedures and internationally recognized in areas including valvular and surgical heart disease and POTS. He was born in Nottingham, England, and went to medical school at the Victoria University of Manchester. He took postgraduate positions at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, then the Queens Medical Center. Dr Ahmed moved to Birmingham, AL, where he was the first person selected for the Physician Scientist Training Program with specialization in cardiology and interventional cardiology.

Dr. Philip Johnson is originally from Selma, AL. Philip began his studies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, where he double majored in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering. After a year in the “real world” working for his father as a machine design engineer, he went to graduate school at UAB in Birmingham, AL, where he completed a Masters and PhD in Biomedical Engineering before becoming a research assistant professor in Biomedical Engineering. After a short stint in academics, he continued his education at UAB in Medical School, Internal Medicine Residency, and is currently a cardiology fellow in training with a special interest in cardiac electrophysiology.

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