Clinical and Experimental Research in Cardiology

My unique background and training as an internist, cardiologist and maternal fetal medicine specialist should serve the purposes of the nuMoM2B network in its collaboration with the NHLBI very well. I staff women’s cardiology clinic at UCI with particular emphasis on preventive care and pregnancy related cardiac complications.  I am working closely with Dr. Shaista Malik, MD, PhD (Medical Director of Preventive Cardiology Program at UCI) to establish a comprehensive women’s cardiovascular program  at our institution.  I am ideally suited as principal investigator for the proposed research because of my unique expertise in both high risk obstetrics and cardiology. I serve on the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC) Pregnancy Associated Mortality Review Advisory Committee (PAMR) and recently reported cardiac disease being the leading cause of maternal mortality. I am privileged to have been mentored by Dr. Deborah Wing for over a decade, having first met when I was in training at Los Angeles County + University of Southern California Medical Center. She was integral in my decision-making to pursue fellowship training in maternal-fetal medicine, and I am pleased to work in her Division. My own research interests lie primarily in cardiac disease in women particularly in pregnancy. I have been a collaborator with Michael Zaragoza, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the division of genetics in the department of Pediatrics, and Esther Friedrich, MD, our first combined maternal-fetal medicine fellow, in the genetics of congenital heart disease, a project which was funded by the NHLBI. I will be able to dedicate sufficient time to execution of this research project.

• Anticoagulation in pregnancy
• Critical care in obstetrics
• Fetal echocardiography
• Heart disease in pregnancy
• Heart disease in women
• Medical disorders in pregnancy