Beneath the Surface: Moving Beyond Symptomatic Control in Obstructive Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Dr. Abraham is the Meyer Friedman Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Co-Director of the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Center of Excellence at University of California at San Francisco. He is a board- certified cardiologist who is recognized for his expertise and contributions in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy and Advanced Echocardiography. He has had an HCM- centered clinical practice for the last 19 years across 3 institutions starting at the Mayo Clinic Rochester, Johns Hopkins and now at UCSF. Previously he served as the Founder- Director of the Johns Hopkins HCM Center of Excellence. His particular clinical interest is in the management of complex obstructive HCM and the use of advanced imaging in the diagnosis and monitoring of HCM patients. His clinical research program has been a leading site for clinical trials for emerging drug therapies and he serves on the steering and/or publications committees for some of these trials. He has over 150 peer reviewed publications focused on HCM, computational flow dynamics and deep learning, and has had continuous NIH and other research funding for over 20 years. He received the 2019 Richard Popp Teaching and Mentorship Award from the American Society of Echocardiography. He served or serves on the editorial boards of the JACC, JACC Cardiovascular Imaging, JASE and Circulation Imaging.

Dr. Steve R. Ommen is a Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and a Consultant in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine. He serves as the Director of the Mayo Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Clinic, the largest and longest-standing dedicated HCM Center in the world. Mayo’s HCM clinic is recognized as a leader in clinical outcomes, research, and patient education. Dr. Ommen is also Co-director of the Structural Heart Disease program, Medical Director for AskMayoExpert, and Medical Director of the Center for Connected Care.

Dr. Ommen specializes in caring for patients with structural heart disease with a special emphasis on valvular heart disease and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). He directs Mayo Clinic’s Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy program, which is the world’s largest and longest standing program in this disease. He is a requested speaker globally and helped write international guidelines on the appropriate management of patients with HCM.

Dr. Ommen leads Mayo Clinic’s telemedicine team, a critical component in Mayo Clinic’s strategy to provide comprehensive care with a seamless patient experience. He oversees the development of products, services, and systems that bring health care to patients where they need it.

Additionally, he is active in advocating for the advancement of connected care through discussions and presentations at regional, state, and national levels so that these advancements in health care delivery can be made available to people and patients more broadly.

Dr. Ommen has earned many awards throughout his career including the Outstanding Achievement Award in Clinical Cardiology, the Mayo Award of Individual Excellence, the Mayo Award for Team Excellence, the Excellence in Teaching Recognition for Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, and the Outstanding Course Director Award from the Mayo School of Continuing Medical Education. He has been recognized as one of the top 15 Digital Health care Executives.

Dr. Ommen received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University. His undergraduate medical education, Internal Medicine Residency and Cardiovascular Diseases Fellowship were all completed at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.

Carolyn Ho is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Medical Director of the Cardiovascular Genetics Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She obtained her undergraduate degree from Yale University and her medical degree from Harvard Medical School. Dr. Ho trained at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for both Internal Medicine residency and Cardiology fellowship before joining the staff of the Cardiovascular Division in 2001.

Dr. Ho’s research focuses on characterizing early phenotypes of sarcomere mutations in inherited cardiomyopathies, leading a large, multicenter registry of genetic cardiomyopathies, and developing clinical trials to diminish the progression of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The overall goal is to use genetic/mechanistic insights, careful clinical study, and collaboration to improve the care of patients and families with genetic heart disease.