17. HF part 6: Atrial Fibrillation and Heart Failure with Dr. Jonathan Piccini

Duke cardiology fellow, Rahul Loungani, interviews Dr. Jonathan Piccini, director of the Electrophysiology Clinical Trials Program and Arrhythmia Core Laboratory at Duke University, about atrial fibrillation management in patients with heart failure. They discuss rate vs rhythm control and strategies for both, new onset AF in the context of critical illness, wearable devices in AF, escalation of therapy in AF, ideal patient for catheter ablation, and AF patients with cardiac resynchronization therapy. On the CardioNerds Heart Failure topic page you’ll podcast episodes, references, guest experts and contributors, and so much more. Take me to the Heart Failure Topic Page Take me to episode topics page Acute Decompensated Heart Failure Primer – Youtube Jonathan P. Piccini, MD, MHS is a clinical cardiac electrophysiologist and Associate Professor of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center and the Duke Clinical Research Institute. His research interests include the conduct of clinical trials and the assessment of cardiovascular therapeutics for the care of patients with heart rhythm disorders. At present, he is the Director of the EP Clinical Trials Program and Arrhythmia Core Laboratory at Duke University. He also serves on the Clinical Working Group of the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines – Atrial fibrillation (GWTG-Afib) registry program. He is an associate editor for the American Heart Journal and serves on the editorial board of Heart Rhythm, the European Heart Journal, and the Journal of Cardiac Electrophysiology. He is the Principal Investigator of the data and coordinating center for ORBIT AF, a 25,000 patient registry focused on quality of care and improving outcomes in patients with atrial fibrillation. He is also the PI of the GENETIC AF clinical trial, the first clinical trial to study genotype-directed rhythm control therapy for atrial fibrillation. He also serves on the steering committees of multiple international randomized trials focused on the treatment of atrial fibrillation. Dr. Piccini has more than 175 publications in the field of heart rhythm medicine. Clinically, his focus is on the care of patients with atrial fibrillation and complex arrhythmias, with particular emphasis on catheter ablation and lead extraction. Dr. Rahul Loungani completed medical school at the medical university of SC and then traveled to Baltimore for internal medicine training in the Osler Residency Program at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Here he fell in love with the management and hemodynamics of critically ill patients. He is currently a third-year cardiology fellow at Duke University Medical Center where he will also be pursuing fellowship in advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology next year. His current interests are in Cardiac amyloid, In particular its arrhythmic manifestations, early diagnosis, and novel therapeutics. He also loves teaching the housestaff and was awarded the Cassell-Saperstein award at Duke, recognizing the fellow who most demonstrates a commitment to teaching and passion for clinical education. Outside of the hospital loves being a new dad to baby Arya