Biographical note

Dr. Jai Raman, MD, PhD is a highly skilled cardiac and thoracic surgeon known for his efforts to develop new and innovative surgical procedures, especially for the treatment of heart failure. He helped develop ventricular containment (or the wrap procedure) and performed the first eight of these procedures in the world. In addition, Dr. Raman developed the geometric endoventricular repair procedure--a new technique to reconstruct badly scarred heart chambers to restore the shape and size of the heart's ventricles. Dr. Raman is also an expert in the surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation. He has created new surgical instruments to perform intra-operative radiofrequency ablation to eliminate the tissue that causes abnormal heart rhythms. His work to develop new techniques to repair mitral and tricuspid valves has been particularly successful. These procedures have spared many patients from requiring early total heart valve replacement. Dr. Raman is actively researching methods to improve graft survival and graft-harvesting procedures for coronary artery bypass graft surgery. He is currently co-coordinating a worldwide study on the long-term efficacy of using the radial artery for bypass surgery. In addition, he is studying the exclusive use of off-pump arterial grafting, which has been shown to decrease the need for red blood cell transfusion during bypass surgery and reduce the risk of stroke. In total, Dr. Raman has performed nearly 2,000 heart surgeries and more than 600 thoracic operations. His surgical expertise encompasses a wide range of cardiac and thoracic procedures, with particular skill in complex, high-risk cardiac surgeries. Dr. Bertram Pitt, MD has researched in practically all areas of cardiovascular disease, with special emphasis on ischemic heart disease and heart failure. Dr. Pitt is author of close to 500 papers and chapters in books and is Member of the Editorial Board on a number of Journals in cardiovascular diseases. He is a member of numerous professional societies and has held office in several of them. Among others, he was Chairman, Council on Circulation of the American Heart Association, President of the Michigan Chapter of American College of Cardiology, Chairman, Young Investigator's Award Committee of the American College of Cardiology, and is currently Chairman of the Reveal Committee of the ACC. Dr Pitt has been the Principal or Co-principal Investigator of a number of significant clinical trials. Ragavendra Baliga is a previously published author of educational cardiology titles and an experience cardiology clincian.