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A Conversation with Stephen G. Ellis, MD
In this issue, Dr. Bhatt chats with Stephen G. Ellis, MD, section head of invasive/interventional cardiology in the Robert and Suzanne Tomsich Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart and Vascular Institute, Cleveland Clinic.
Ellis received his medical degree from the University of California — Los Angeles School of Medicine, and followed that with fellowships in cardiology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Stanford University Hospital and a fellowship in angioplasty at Emory University Hospital, Atlanta.
Deepak L. Bhatt
Stephen G. Ellis
To date, Ellis has written or co-written more than 700 papers on interventional cardiology and CVD and served as principal investigator for numerous national and international clinical trials, including RESCUE I, GUSTO IIb PTCA, TAXUS IV and V, FINESSE, and ABSORB III and IV. His research interests are complex coronary interventions, novel treatments for inoperable patients, minimally invasive treatments for aortic valve diseases and improving present-day understanding of the basis and prediction of disease.
What are your hobbies outside of practicing medicine?
Dr. Ellis: I’m an avid downhill skier — it’s a test of skill in the wonderful outdoors and remains one vacation that is still almost guaranteed to bring my family back together again (my children live in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.). I love to read non-fiction, principally history, but also some current affairs and economics. History teaches us that there have always been challenges and obstacles to overcome, that man is imperfect and that there is much to be gained by persistence and fortitude.
Who has had the greatest influence on your career?
Dr. Ellis: I was incredibly fortunate to be able to train with Eugene Braunwald, MD, and Andreas Gruentzig, MD, and work with Eric Topol, MD. Each had a powerful personality. They all understood the need for randomized trials to overcome the limitations of nonrandomized comparisons. Moreover, all were imbued with an insatiable desire to drive the field of medicine forward — and were in some ways iconoclasts. I hope I’ve been able to in some way carry that “never be satisfied with current accepted explanations” perspective forward in my own work and instill it in my trainees.
What was the defining moment that led you to your field?
Dr. Ellis: When I left the Braunwald/Robert Kloner, MD, PhD, lab in Boston, where in the context of research on infarct size reduction we had played around with contrast echo, I thought I might be an echocardiographer under the tutelage of Richard Popp, MD. I even designed a helical catheter to be placed above the aortic valve at cath to inject agitated contrast to optimize contrast signal-to-noise ratios (back then we were taught not to place anything into the coronaries beyond the ostium!). Yet at the same time on the post-op wards, I saw people after bypass surgery come back “not fully with it” mentally. When I heard of Gruentzig’s work to revascularize without surgery, I knew I had to pursue it.
What area of research in intervention interests you most right now and why?
Dr. Ellis: There are several. I really think we should be doing a better job targeting therapies for individuals’ problems, although I’m the first to admit “the genomic revolution” hasn’t come as quickly as I thought it would. Now, in that general area, I’m more focused on downstream biology — proteomics — and pharmacogenomics. I’ve also co-invented an embolic protection device for transcatheter aortic valve replacement and am working with some exciting novel stents.
What advice would you offer a student in medical school today?
Dr. Ellis: I chose medicine as a career because I was fascinated by the science of physical chemistry, my undergraduate major, yet wanted to help people directly. I think that’s still true today: If you love science and want to be in a helping profession, it’s hard to beat medicine. That said, this generation of physicians will have it much harder in many ways than mine. Tight money will place constraints on what’s possible and, at least on the clinical side of medicine, there’s been a considerable loss of autonomy. Yet the potential for synergies between informatics and molecular biology to intervene very early in the disease process and drive individualized therapies is enormous — something that we who grew up in the era of population-based medicine didn’t have.