Dr Gayathri Amonkar is working an Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology at Topiwala National Medical College, B. Y. L. Nair Hospital Mumbai for the last 18 years. She has a keen interest in cardiac and pulmonary pathology. She has over 50 publications in national and international journals. She has coauthored chapters in books including an atlas on gross lung pathology. She has guided many postgraduate students and has received awards for her research papers. She has been the recipient of the Geraldine Zeiler scholarship in Pulmonary Pathology and has undergone training at the prestigious Mayo Clinic, USA. She is member of IAPM, IAPID and the institutional ethics committee.

Denis Bouchard MD CM, M.Sc, Ph.D, FRCS(C), studied medicine at McGill University and specialized in cardiac surgery at Université de Montréal. He completed a surgical fellowship in valve repair at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic. He has practised at the Montreal Heart Institute where he joined the staff in 2000. Over the years, he has developed expertise in valve repair, minimally invasive thoracic surgery (thoracoscopy), heart failure surgery, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy surgery. In 2006, he founded the Cardiac Surgery Minimally Invasive Surgical Program of the Montreal Heart Institute, which is still under his supervision. Since 2007, Dr. Bouchard has directed the Cardiac Surgery Program at Université de Montréal and is on the Cardiac Surgery Specialty Committee for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, for which he is also an examiner.

Dr. Bouchard is an active researcher and clinical investigator, with 90 peer reviewed publications, 4 book chapters and a PhD in clinical research in Cardiac Surgery in 2014, obtained in 2014. He is invited around the globe for lectures and surgeries and has been leading 6 humanitarian cardiac surgery missions in Southern Egypt and Ethiopia to this day. Following the acquisition of the da Vinci Surgical Robot in February 2017, Dr. Bouchard has been put in charge of the Montreal Heart Institute Robotic Surgery Program.

Dr. Michael Reardon grew up in Houston, Texas, where he attended Baylor College of Medicine graduating with honors and as a member of AOA. He completed a 5 year general surgery residency under Dr. Michael DeBakey in the Baylor Affiliated Hospitals and a 2 year cardiothoracic residency under Dr. Denton Cooley at the Texas Heart Institute.

He started and ran his own private practice as well as serving full time on the faculty of Baylor College of Medicine where he was Professor of Surgery with tenure, Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Program Director for the Thoracic Surgery Residency and Vice Chair of Academic Affairs in the Department of Surgery. He has spent his entire career at The Methodist Hospital serving in numerous administrative positions including President of the Medical Staff.
Currently, Dr. Reardon is Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Allison Family Distinguished Chair of Cardiovascular Research, Senior Attending Surgeon at The Methodist Hospital, Senior Scientist the Houston Methodist Research Institute and Surgical Director of Structural Heart Disease at the Houston Methodist Hospital. He also serves as Clinical Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He has written over 600 medical and scientific papers, book chapters and abstracts and frequently lectures on his research and clinical interests of cardiac valvular disease, thoracic aortic disease and cardiac tumors. In 1998, Dr. Reardon performed the first successful autotransplant worldwide for a malignant left atrial sarcoma and the first successful autotransplant for a malignant left ventricular sarcoma in 2003. Since then, Dr. Reardon has performed more than 52 such surgeries has traveled to Poland, Belgium, New Zealand and Israel to perform these surgeries. He presently serves as the national surgical Principal Investigator for the SURTAVI, Evolut Low Risk Randomized, Reprise III and Reprise IV TAVR trials. He is internationally recognized as a leader in cardiac tumors and in the catheter based approach to structural heart disease.

Dr Johnston is a cardiac surgeon and Director of the Aortic Valve Center in the Heart and Vascular Institute at Cleveland Clinic, the nation’s largest at highest acuity cardiac surgery program.

Dr Johnston grew up in Connecticut, where he ran a company producing hand forged ornamental ironwork before beginning his medical career. He received his undergraduate degree in Anthropology in Classics as a Presidential Scholar at Dartmouth College, where he was awarded Class of 1922 Scholarship. His undergraduate thesis on Tuberculosis Prevention in Tibetan Refugees in India received the Goodman Prize. He subsequently received his MD from Harvard Medical School where he was a Harvard National Scholar.
He completed his clinical training as an intern and resident in general surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He was awarded the Edward D. Churchill Fellowship, the American College of Surgeons Resident Research Scholarship, and an NIH National Research Service Award for his research in the immunology of heart and lung transplantation.
Dr. Johnston trained in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at Cleveland Clinic, including a focused fellowship in aortic and endovascular surgery. He joined the cardiac surgery staff in 2008. Dr Johnston’s clinical and research interests are in the areas of aortic valve and root disease, minimally invasive valve operations, complex reoperative heart surgery, health care quality and outcomes.
Program Director for Thoracic Surgery, Dr Johnston is actively involved in training the next generation of surgeons. He is a two time recipient of the Bruce W Lytle Surgical Educator Award. He is currently focused on maximizing the training of high performing surgical teams, utilizing a multidisciplinary collaboration including participants from the military, professional sports, and fortune 500 corporations.

Dr Johnston is passionate about innovation in healthcare. He co-chairs the Heart and Vascular Institute Innovation Peer Review Committee, and is a recipient of the Early Career Innovation Award as well as numerous yearly innovation awards for his work in healthcare information technology and cardiac surgery innovation. He works as a consultant and member of the advisory board to multiple companies in the medical device, healthcare information technology, and healthcare delivery space.

An avid hiker, sailor and private pilot, he enjoys every opportunity to spend time in the out of doors with his family.

After medical training in India, Dr Jagdish Butany qualified as a pathologist (University of Toronto, FRCPC ’79) and followed this with a years fellowship at the National Institutes of Health(Heart, Lung & Blood branch) at Bethesda, Maryland, USA. He is Professor and Director of Anatomical Pathology at the University of Toronto(2004-’17), and Staff Pathologist and Consultant Cardiovascular Pathologist at the University Health Network/Toronto General Hospital, with 290+ peer-reviewed publications, as well as book chapters and invited presentations.He has received several Teaching awards. He Co-Edited(with Dr Max Buja) the Text Book, Cardiovascular Pathology,(4th Edition ). A founding member of the Society for Cardiovascular Pathology he was its President (Mar ’07 -Mar ’09) and Co-Editor-in-Chief of its official Journal, Cardiovascular Pathology(2000-2011).. He was the president of the Canadian Association of Pathologists(Oct ‘06-July ‘09), as well as founder and Founding Editor in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Pathology. He is currently the Editor in- Chief of Human Pathology Case Reports. A team player Dr Butany is a strong proponent of the role of Laboratory Medicine, in Medicine and the increasing prognostic importance of Laboratory tests in the future. Actively involved in Social activities, he has been a member of the Board of Directors of The Scarborough Hospital(6 years), works with the Maytree foundation on its mentorship committee, is the Secretary- Treasurer of the World Association of Societies of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine(2009—‘17) and is a Trustee and a Member of the Board of Directors of his community’s temple in Toronto.

After finishing her cardiology residency in Toronto, Dr. Lorretta Daniel completed fellowship training in echocardiography and TEE in 1990 under the guidance of Dr. H. Rakowski. Since then she has been on staff at UHN as a clinical cardiologist and echocardiographer. Special interests include valvular heart disease, cardiac tumors and Women and Heart Disease (working with the Heart and Stoke Foundation). She enjoys teaching at the undergraduate and post graduate level especially international fellows in echocardiography. She was honoured to receive the E.D. Wigle Teaching Award in 2016.