Monday, November 6, 2006

Cardiac Electrophysiology at UCSF: Shocking Hearts Back to Health

Words like “pioneering,” “original,” and “premier,” can sometimes overstate a single person’s contributions to any field, let alone a medical research specialty, which often moves along lines of collaboration and consensus. But in the case of cardiac catheter ablation, a treatment that uses an electrode catheter and radio waves to destroy the faulty electrical tissues in a heart that causes it to beat out of control, UCSF’s Melvin Scheinman can take the deepest bow. True, he was part of a team that tested the approach in the 1970s. And it was a team effort that led to the first successful procedure in 1981. But catheter ablation was Scheinman’s idea. And hundreds of thousands of people around the world now live free of life-threatening arrhythmias and fibrillations thanks to him, those he trained, and those he inspired.

A variety of stories and images have been collected here to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the world’s first catheter ablation at UCSF. Included are a story about Scheinman’s life and work, an overview of the research of Jeffrey Olgin, MD, the current director of UCSF’s Cardiac Electrophysiology and Arrhythmia Service, a fact sheet on cardiac electrophysiology, an interview with the father of catheter ablation that appeared in the American Journal of Cardiology, a historical account, and a slideshow of the opening of the new Cardiac Catheterization and Electrophysiology Labs.