Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions Bestows Highest Designation Ranking to Leading Interventional Cardiologists

MSCAI recipients to be recognized during SCAI 2022 Scientific Sessions in Atlanta

May 15, 2022, WASHINGTON—The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) announced its 2022 Master Interventionalists of SCAI (MSCAI) designations. The MSCAI recipients will be formally recognized during the SCAI 2022 Scientific Sessions in Atlanta on May 21, 2022. 

The MSCAI designation is awarded to individuals who have demonstrated excellence in invasive/interventional cardiology over the course of their career and for their commitment to the highest levels of clinical care, innovation, publication, and teaching. 

This year’s MSCAI designations were awarded to the following group of outstanding interventionalists: 

Deepak L. Bhatt MD, MPH is Executive Director of Interventional Cardiovascular Programs at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Bhatt served for many years as Director of the Interventional Cardiology Fellowship, Associate Director of the Cardiovascular Medicine Fellowship, and Associate Director of the Cardiovascular Coordinating Center. He was then recruited to be the Chief of Cardiology at VA Boston Healthcare System and served in that role for several years. He was a senior investigator in the TIMI Study Group for over a decade. He was selected by Brigham and Women's Hospital as the 2014 Eugene Braunwald Scholar. He received the Eugene Braunwald Teaching Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Clinical Cardiology from Brigham and Women's Hospital in 2017, ACC's Distinguished Mentor Award in 2018, and AHA's Distinguished Scientist Award in 2019.  

He is the editor of Cardiovascular Intervention: A Companion to Braunwald's Heart Disease and of Opie's Cardiovascular Drugs: A Companion to Braunwald's Heart Disease. He is also one of the co-editors of Braunwald's Heart Disease, editor of the peer-reviewed Journal of Invasive Cardiology, and editor-in-chief of the Harvard Heart Letter for patients.

Joaquin E. Cigarroa, MD is the Division Head of Cardiology, a Professor of Medicine and the inaugural recipient of the endowed Judkins Professorship in the Division of Cardiology, Knight Cardiovascular Institute.  

He has been an active member of SCAI for over 20 years and has served as chair of the Quality Improvement Committee, inaugural chair of the DEI Committee and the co-chair of the Government Relations Committee and this past year joined the SCAI Board of Trustees. Special acknowledgement to three individuals who were instrumental in introducing him to SCAI, including Dr. Charlie Chambers, Dr. Kenneth Rosenfield, and Dr. Steven Bailey. In addition to his work with SCAI, he is an active member of both the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association, having served on multiple committees, writing committees, and leadership roles. 

With his experiences in scholarship and clinical trials, he served as an associate editor and deputy editor of Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions. In addition, he has served on the FDA circulatory devices panel for over 10 years and is the incoming chair of the FDA circulatory devices panel beginning in July 2022.   

Thomas Fagan, MD has been performing pediatric and adult congenital interventional catheterizations for over 24 years. He was the Director of Advanced Interventional Fellowship Training for eight years at the University of Colorado and been a principal investigator for multiple investigational trials, many of which led to FDA approval of transcatheter cardiac devices. Dr. Fagan has been an active member of the SCAI Congenital Heart Disease Council since the late 1990s and was the co-director for the 2012 and director of the 2013 congenital track of the SCAI Scientific Sessions. I have been faculty for these Scientific Sessions annually since 2003. Dr. Fagan has served on more than 15 SCAI committees and workgroups and currently represents the congenital section for the SCAI Board of Trustees.  

Marc Feldman, MD is both a practicing cardiologist and physiologist with expertise in translational research that have resulted in commercial products. Two of his inventions have been successfully commercialized. Dr. Feldman’s credentials as a cardiologist include being a frequent recipient of the "Best Doctors in America" award and being a Director of the Coronary Care Unit and two University Catheterization Laboratories. His qualifications as a physiologist include continuous grant funding and peer reviewed publications for the past 34 years. The grant funding has totaled more than $15 million over the course of his career. Dr. Feldman has a total of 291 peer reviewed publications and has 48 issued or pending US patents.

Tim Fischell, MD is Professor of Medicine at Michigan State University and Medical Director of the Department of Cardiovascular Research as well as Director of the Interventional Cardiology Fellowship Program at the Borgess Heart Institute/MSU in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He has an active practice as an interventional cardiologist at the Borgess Heart Institute in Kalamazoo. After receiving his medical degree from Cornell University Medical Center, Dr. Fischell completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard University, and then completed his cardiology fellowship and interventional cardiology fellowship at Stanford University Medical Center. He was on the faculty at Stanford for five years, and then Director of the cardiac cath labs and interventional cardiology at Vanderbilt University from 1992-1996. Dr. Fischell is board certified in internal medicine, cardiovascular medicine and interventional cardiology. Dr. Fischell is an active inventor, with more than 100 issued U.S. patents. He has served as principal investigator for 5 National Institutes of Health grants, as well as several other research grants. Dr. Fischell has research interests in vascular biology, interventional cardiology devices such as stents and renal denervation, and has presented more than 200 papers in the United States and abroad. A member of the editorial board of Cardiovascular Revascularization Medicine, Journal of Invasive Cardiology, and the Journal of Clinical Medicine. Dr. Fischell has authored more than 140 papers. He is founder and CMO of Ablative Solutions, and founder and CMO of CrossLiner, Inc., and is a serial entrepreneur and founder of eight other medical device companies. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Thorax Center Andreas Gruntzig Award for Inventor of the Year in 1997, the CRT 2015 Innovation Award, and is a fellow in the National Academy of Inventors.  

C. Michael Gibson, MD is an interventional cardiologist, cardiovascular researcher & educator. He is the CEO of the combined non-profit Baim and PERFUSE Research Institutes at Harvard Medical School.  

The institutes have led over 1,000 studies, published 5,500 manuscripts (including 144 in the New England Journal) and have led 60 FDA submissions from their network of 7,000 sites worldwide. Gibson has been ranked as one of the world's most highly cited authors in all of science. In 2021, he was named one of the Fifty of the Most Influential Voices in Healthcare by Medika Life. His work has been cited over 136,000 times, and he has an H index of 129 and an i10-index of 523. 

Dr. Gibson is a practicing interventional cardiologist who has held numerous leadership positions in medicine including positions as a Coronary Care Unit Director, a Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory Director, a Chief of Cardiology and as a Vice Chairman of Medicine at a hospital of over 1,000 physicians.  

Dr. Gibson has led phase 1-4 clinical trials, and cardiology megatrials of over 15,000 patients which eventuate in international approval of drugs like prasugrel, rivaroxaban, betrixaban, and andexanet as well as devices such as one that alarms to alert a patient to heart attack.  

For years, Gibson has been chosen as one of Boston's Top Doctors. As an innovator, Gibson invented measures of coronary blood flow that are widely used today (the TIMI frame count (cited 2,131 times), the TIMI myocardial perfusion grade (cited 1,089 times).  

Dean J. Kereiakes, MD is President and Medical Director of The Christ Hospital Heart and Vascular Institute, Medical Director of The Christ Hospital Research Institute, and Professor of Clinical Medicine at Ohio State University.  

Dr. Kereiakes has been national/ international Principal Investigator in trials for FDA approval of more than 20 novel drugs and medical devices. He was previously founder and CEO of the largest cardiology subspecialty group in Ohio (Ohio Heart Health Center) as well as founder and Medical Director of The Carl & Edyth Lindner Center for Research and Education at The Christ Hospital. He has performed 5 first human and 18 first in the U.S. uses of novel medical technologies in addition to more than 30,000 catheterization laboratory procedures. 

Dr. Kereiakes has published over 1,000 peer-reviewed journal articles, abstracts and book chapters. He previously served as Section Editor for both MedReviews (New Drugs and Devices) and Circulation and is currently Deputy Editor of the Journal of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (JSCAI). He has been named to Best Doctors in America, Outstanding Alumnus, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and he has received an Honorary Doctor of Science from University of Cincinnati. 

Ahmed Magdy, MD has been the SCAI International Ambassador representing Egypt since 2019. He currently serves as a consultant cardiologist for the National Heart Institute, Cairo, and received his doctorate in cardiovascular disease from Cairo University. 

Oscar Mendiz, MD is the Director of the Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery Institute and Chief of Interventional Cardiology at Favaloro Foundation University Hospital at Buenos Aires, Argentina.  
He was pioneer in Argentina for the development of carotid stenting, distal protection devices, EVAR, TEVAR, self-expandable stents and TAVI. He and his team have presented more than 300 abstracts at national meeting/international meetings. 

Dr. Mendiz is a former member of the Board of Governor of Favaloro University and Favaloro University Hospital. He has been actively involved in different scientific societies including the Argentinian Society of Cardiology, Argentinean Federation of Cardiology, Argentinean College of Interventional Cardiology (CACI) Brazilian Society of Hemodynamic and Interventional Cardiology (SBHCI) SOLACI) and International Societies such as the ACC) the Society of Cardiac Angiography and Intervention (SCAI) as Fellow and Board of Trustees Member, and is a former TCT Associated director and member of the International Council.  

He works in the Favaloro Foundation University Hospital, which is a hospital founded by Dr. René G Favaloro, a pioneer in the coronary revascularization field. Dr. Mendiz is well known for following Dr Favaloro's commitments based on team approach, compassion, and concern for his patients, he is also known for taking care of complex patients. He has trained many IC from LATAM and has proctored different procedures in LATAM and ME.

Michael Savage, MD is the Ralph J. Roberts Professor of Cardiology at Thomas Jefferson University and Director Emeritus of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. Dr. Savage was instrumental in the formation of the Jefferson Angioplasty Center, a second-opinion center for high-risk patients with complex cardiovascular disease. Under Dr. Savage's oversight, the Jefferson team has pioneered many advances in interventional cardiology procedures and was at the forefront of clinical research leading to the development of coronary stents which have revolutionized the treatment of heart disease. Dr. Savage's research continues to advance the care of patients with cardiac disease by perfecting techniques for less invasive alternatives to heart surgery. He has produced over 300 publications including the recent textbook, "Clopidogrel and the Newer P2Y12 Antiplatelet Agents" and serves on the editorial board of several journals. Dr. Savage has received numerous honors for patient care, research and teaching. He is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions, and the American College of Physicians. The journal Public Health recently listed him among the Top 50 Influencers in Cardiology on Twitter.