Program Highlights

Program Highlights

The Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak performs annually more than: 

This volume has allowed the fellowship program to provide premier training in cardiovascular procedures and imaging. Fellows in recent years have all achieved COCATs II level training in Cardiac Catheterization, Echocardiography, and Cardiac CT. A unique facet of our program is a focus on coronary CTA and specifically CT-FFR, which is a developing area of clinical research allowing for a non-invasive measure of intracoronary flow hemodynamics. The fellowship offers a broad array of advanced training including fellowships in interventional cardiology, electrophysiology, advanced imaging, structural interventional, and peripheral interventional. Third year general cardiology fellows can tailor their experience in the last six months of fellowship to their prospective advanced training. In every subspecialty of cardiology, strong clinicians and clinical researchers provide a well-rounded training experience for our fellows.

Clinical Training Facilities

Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak is a 1,109-bed major academic and tertiary referral center with a level 1 adult trauma center. Beaumont is the exclusive clinical partner of the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, and are the primary training center for 450 residents and fellows. Fellows rotate through the Catheterization Laboratory (6 labs including a hybrid cath lab/OR) and the Electrophysiology Laboratory (4 labs). The echocardiography lab boasts state-of-the-art equipment and resources, including a brand-new TEE suite. The CCU consists of a 20-bed cardiac intensive care unit with magnet certified nursing staff. Recently, in 2019, the Max and Debra Ernst Center opened to provide care for patients with advanced cardiac disease. Additionally, a 3D printing lab allows us to utilize cutting edge technology in preparation of complex procedures. Finally, the Center for Innovation & Research in Cardiovascular Diseases (CIRC) is a unique place for integrated physician training and education for various new invasive procedures.

History of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine

Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan will always be known for being the earliest proponents of catheter-based treatment for acute myocardial infarction. In the 1970s, Dr. Seymour Gordon and Dr. Gerald Timmis were the first to administer intracoronary streptokinase for acute MI. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Beaumont recruited a team of academic cardiologists including Dr. William O’Neill, Dr. Robert Safian, Dr. Cindy Grines and Dr. James Goldstein, who embarked on a 20-year era of high volume clinical research and numerous landmark publications beginning with the PAMI study, the first major trial of angioplasty compared with thrombolytic therapy for acute MI. Dr. Safian led a variety of clinical studies on percutaneous coronary interventional techniques, including atherectomy, lasers, and stents, and later numerous studies of renal and carotid intervention. Dr. Goldstein studied RV infarction and the effects of reperfusion on the ischemic RV. In 2005, Beaumont was notably the first hospital in North America to perform TAVR.

Joined later by Dr. Simon Dixon, Dr. David Haines, and Dr. Ivan Hanson, the department matured into a powerhouse for novel interventions in several areas:

• Ischemic heart disease: stable and acute ischemic heart diseases, cardiogenic shock, therapeutic temperature management and coronary brachytherapy
  
• Peripheral arterial disease: acute and chronic limb ischemia, visceral [renal, mesenteric] ischemia, brachiocephalic and carotid disease, and renovascular hypertension
  
• Structural heart diseases: TAVR, Valve-in-Valve, MitraClip, paravalvular regurgitation, PFO and ASD repair 
  
• Electrophysiology: high volume device implantation, AF and VT ablation, and left atrial appendage occlusion
  

In more recent years, Dr. Kavitha Chinnaiyan and Dr. Abhay Bilolikar have joined the full-time academic faculty and have led Beaumont to prominence as a national leader in noninvasive imaging, including one of the largest programs in the world in echocardiography, coronary CT angiography, and cardiac MRI. In collaboration with several cardiologists in private practice, especially Dr. Michael Gallagher, Dr. Amr Abbas, and Dr. James Stewart, the department has expanded clinical, educational, and research activities into the application of CTA and FFRct for evaluation of acute chest pain in the emergency room, invasive and noninvasive assessment of plaque characteristics in patients with CAD and PAD, and highly sophisticated approaches to ECG interpretation. The excitement surrounding these innovations fostered a great learning environment for all cardiovascular fellows at Beaumont.