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>> Hi, I'm Jennifer Nickoles,
Interim President at Johns Hopkins Baby Medical Center
and pass co-chair of Go Red for Women in Baltimore.
Welcome to the Red Chair Series.
With me today is Dr. Nino Isakadze.
Welcome to the Red Chair Series.
>> Thank you, Jen, for the invitation and
I'm excited to chat with you today.
>> Wonderful. Let's get started.
Tell me a little bit about yourself.
What is your area of expertise within cardiac medicine?
>> I am a cardiac electrophysiology fellow at Johns Hopkins,
and my area of interest is atrial fibrillation,
which is the most common arrhythmia that people experience.
>> Where are you in terms of your training?
>> I am currently a first-year electrophysiology fellow.
Just to explain,
after general cardiology fellowship
and there's additional training that consists of
two years where we specialize in
specifically different types of arrhythmias.
>> What got you interested in medicine?
>> I was fascinated by medicine since early childhood.
Then as I got older,
my grandfather experience heart attack.
As I was family member
supporting my loved one going through cardiac disease,
I was drawn to this field and I was
impressed by the heroic actions of the doctors.
I wanted to be on the other side and help
other patients who are going through that heart disease problem.
>> Talk to us a little bit more about electrocardiac physiology.
What is it, I know the shorthand is EP.
What does it mean to be an EP doctor?
>> Electrophysiology as a field that specializes in
different hearth rhythm abnormalities or
we can call it electrical problems of the heart.
This ranges from arrhythmias or cardiac conduction disease,
and what we do is we for example,
put in a pacemaker if someone's heart
is not beating as they should be beating,
or we will go after the arrhythmias that they are
having and either burn them or freeze them.
We have different technologies to
go after the different types of arrhythmias.
>> If I'm a patient or a person,
what does it feel like if I'm having any arrhythmia,
how do I know that this is occurring?
>> One of the common symptoms that people will experience
is heart palpitations or a heart racing.
They sometimes may feel faint or pass out.
Some people may feel fatigue, and most importantly,
some people may not feel it at all and just be asymptomatic.
That's where sometimes the doctors will
find it at the regular check-up and regular appointment.
But otherwise the symptom spectrum is
a very large spectrum of symptoms that people can experience.
>> What are the risk factors?
>> Different arrhythmias and
different heart conduction problems have different risk factors.
Maybe I will focus on atrial fibrillation,
which is the most common arrhythmia.
The major risk factors includes age,
which is something that we cannot change.
But there are multiple other modifiable risk factors,
such as high blood pressure, diabetes,
having other heart problems, having excess weight,
alcohol consumption, sleep apnea is
also a major risk factor, high cholesterol.
More specific to atrial fibrillation
is sleep apnea and alcohol consumption.
>> Is it different for men or women,
or is it from person to person?
>> The risk factors are same for everybody.
But what can happen is that women may seek help
less and maybe refer to specialists less often than men.
>> Interesting, how do we know that,
is there research around this?
>> Yeah, there's actually research that has found that women
and some underrepresented minorities and racialized minorities
will get the less of a specialized care called
electrophysiology that will first
more definitive therapies for atrial fibrillation management.
>> As a female who may be experiencing some of these symptoms,
is there anything I can do or I would
be able to do to advocate for myself?
>> If someone is experiencing symptoms,
we urge you to ask doctors about the options because
atrial fibrillation management is not one size fits all.
It's very personalized,
and what will work for one person will not for the other.
What we are hoping to achieve is that everybody gets
education on how to best manage atrial fibrillation,
and then with a doctor,
come up with this strategy and
treatment plan that is personalized to them.
>> You're also very interested in research.
Can you talk to us a little bit about the type of research
you do and what you're interested in studying.
>> What we have discovered with
this research is called in a way, the human-centered design.
We got together diverse group of patients and clinicians,
and together with them came up with a multi-level intervention,
including theater health technology, mobile app wearables,
and also level of human touch with no check-ins from
the medical team to educate
patients on four pillars of atrial fibrillation management data,
which includes stroke prevention,
rhythm control, rate control,
as well as risk factor modifications.
This was actually funded by American Heart Association,
Community Health and Action Taskforce grad.
>> Well, thank you so much for everything you do
for our patients and in this community.
I'm really excited to see
what comes out of the research that you were doing.
It's wonderful that you've been able to marry
your clinical interests with all of
these technological advances for patients.
Thank you so much for everything you do for
the field and for being part of the Red Chair Series.
>> Thank you so much for having me.
It was a great pleasure talking to you tonight.