Contemporary Topics in Cardio-Obstetrics

Dr. Garima Sharma is a national leader in Women’s Health and Preventive Cardiology. She is the Director of Women’s Cardiovascular Health Program and the Director of Cardio-Obstetrics at Inova Health System, which is a service line between Inova Women’s Program and Inova Heart and Vascular Institute.  She did her training at Temple University Hospital, PA and subsequently was on faculty at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD. She is the founder of the Cardio-Obstetrics Program at Hopkins. She has a wealth of knowledge and experience in the management of cardiovascular disease in women across the life span. She has published over 100 per review articles in top tier academic journals. She has also led several national and international educational conferences in women’s cardiovascular health. Her clinical and research interests are in cardiovascular disease in women especially pregnancy, preeclampsia, maternal obesity, health disparities, post-partum prevention of complications from hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, spontaneous coronary artery dissection, addressing cardiovascular health in women and gender inequities in science and medicine. She is a member of the ACC Women in Cardiology Leadership Council and also the AHA Council of Clinical Cardiology’s Women and Underrepresented Populations. . Her research has been awarded funding from NIH and American Heart Association, March of Dimes and she has published extensively in Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Circulation, Journal of American Medical Association on women’s health. 

Nandita Scott, MD,  is an Assistant Professor Medicine at Harvard Medical School, in the Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.  She is the Co-Director of the MGH Corrigan Women’s Heart Health Program as well as the Director of the Cardiovascular Medicine Section at MGH.  Her research and interests focus on spontaneous coronary artery dissection as well as cardiovascular disease and pregnancy and she will be one of the principal investigators of the HOPE registry – a multicentre US based pregnancy registry.  She is the senior author on the Expert Panel:  Use of Cardiac Biomarkers during Pregnancy.  She also  serves on the American College of Cardiology Cardiovascular Disease in Women Committee .  As a result of her efforts in improving cardiology care for women she has received several awards including:  the American Heart Association Physician of the Year for Cape Cod and Islands, two Partners in Excellence awards, placed on the Honor role of the Massachusetts Medical Society, Committee on Women in Medicine as well receiving the Massachusetts Medical Society Women’s Health Research Award.   

Dr. Melinda Davis is Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Universityof Michigan. She holds a joint appointment with the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and is the Cardiology Director of the University of Michigan Cardio-Obstetrics Program. She serves on the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Cardio-Obstetrics Workgroup and has experience on the Michigan Maternal Mortality Review Committee of the Department of Health and Human Services and the ACC Cardiovascular Disease in Women Committee. Her clinical and research interests focus on pregnancy-related cardiovascular disease, including peripartum cardiomyopathy and pregnancy-associated heart failure. Dr. Davis is dedicated to medical education and serves as the Fellowship Program Director for Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Katherine Economy is Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Harvard Medical School and is in the Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. She is the Co-Director of the Program for Cardiovascular Disease in Pregnancy Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her clinical and research interests focus on pregnancy-related cardiovascular disease obstetric outcomes in patients with heart disease, intrapartum management and reproductive decision making. Additional research and clinical interests are in cancer in pregnancy.  She has long been involved in medical education and has served as a member of the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine Fellowship committee and on the Milestone Committee for the ACGME.  She is the Fellowship Program Director for the Maternal Fetal Medicine Fellowship and the Combined Fellowship in Maternal Fetal Medicine and Genetics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.