COURSE DIRECTORS
Below are the course directors for the 2024 event. Course directors for the 2025 event coming soon!
Dr Sidney Lo
Graduated medicine MBBS hons university of Sydney in 1988 with honours. Internship at Royal Prince Alfred hospital in Sydney 1988. Resident medical officer RPAH 1989. Medical registrar 1989-1993. Cardiology training at Alfred Hospital in Melbourne 1994-1995. Completed cardiology training at Royal North Shore hospital 1996 as Senior registrar. RNSH Fellow until June 1997.
Interventional cardiology fellowship at Stanford university medical centre 1997-1998. Staff attending interventional cardiologist 1999-April 2000. Investigator in the PTMR programme and PACIFIC study and co-authored a book chapter on PTMR. Expert in coronary brachytherapy and participated in INHIBIT Study. Consultant to TransVascular inc and participated in the development of PICVA and PICAB procedures. Investigator in DIRECT study and PTMR.
Director of the Coronary unit at Liverpool Hospital from April 2000 until 2013. From 2013, Senior staff cardiologist and Director of Cardiac Catheterisation laboratories at Liverpool Hospital. Interests include novel and complex PCI (CHIP) and acute coronary syndromes, heart failure, antiplatelet and anticoagulants, device therapies, vascular closure devices, intracoronary imaging and cardiogenic shock.
Recognised internationally as CTO-PCI expert and published papers on CTO-PCI. Director of the Asia Pacific CTO club. Served as an investigator in multiple international multicentre clinical trials and also investigator initiated trials. Currently elected NSW representative and secretary of interventional council of Cardiac society of Australia and New Zealand and member of the organising committee of the ANZET meeting annually. Convener of EPIC since 2006, now in its 13th meeting. Organising committee and co-director or convener of ANZCTO, ANZCCT, Action day, Crossroads meeting.
Appointed in 2018 as Associate Director of AICT-Asia PCR. Has served as Faculty at TCT, EuroPCr, CIT, summer-In-Seattle, CCT, TTT, Topic, ANZET, CSANZ, HK cardiac society, Taiwan cardiac society. Organising committee on Heart failure meetings 2003-2005. Highly experienced in PTMV, BAV, ASD/PFO closure procedures and clinical lead of the TAVI programme at Liverpool Hospital.
He has started a distal radial access programme at Liverpool Hospital Sept 2018. He has performed multiple live case demonstrations in high risk, complex PCI as well as CTO-PCI at local and international meetings.
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Dr Rohan Bhagwandeen
Dr Rohan Bhagwandeen
Rohan is an Interventional/Structural Cardiologist who has worked in Newcastle NSW since 2002.
He graduated (MBChB Natal 1989) in Durban South Africa. Post graduate physician training followed in South Africa (King Edward VIII Hospital) (FCP SA) and then Sydney Australia (FRACP).
His interventional training comprised an initial fellowship at the Austin Hospital Melbourne followed by an advanced Interventional year at the Toronto General Hospital Canada (2001)
He is Director of Catheterisation Laboratories at Lake Macquarie Private Hospital Newcastle where he established and leads the TAVI program. He is a senior staff specialist at John Hunter Hospital and a leader of the public TAVI program. Rohan is a TAVI proctor in the Asia Pacific region.
His interest in the structural arena is longstanding, introducing alcohol septal ablation and ASD/PFO closure to the Hunter Region in 2004. He is presently involved in the establishment of Mitral and Tricuspid technologies.
Rohan is a strong advocate for equitable health care delivery and was Co Lead of the Hunter New England Cardiac Stream from 2012-2017.
His special interests include Reperfusion strategies for AMI, Structural Intervention (including TAVI) and complex coronary intervention incorporating imaging and physiology.
Rohan is passionate about education and has convened the Essential Percutaneous Interventional Course (EPIC) since its inception in 2005.
Rohan Is a member of the ANZ Endovascular Therapies (ANZET) organising committee and sits on numerous advisory boards and steering committees including Regional Australian Interventional Structural and Endovascular meeting (RAISE), ACTION DAY, AICT.
He has contributed as an invited faculty member to numerous international meetings including EuroPCR, TCTAP, AICT and APValves
He is a board member of Asia Pacific Society of Interventional Cardiology (APSIC).
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Professor Gemma Figtree
Professor Gemma A Figtree
Professor Gemma A Figtree
MB BS, DPhil (Oxon), FRACP, FCSANZ, FAHA
MB BS, DPhil (Oxon), FRACP, FCSANZ, FAHA
Gemma is a Professor in Medicine at the University of Sydney and an Interventional Cardiologist at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney. She is the Chair of the University of Sydney’s multi-disciplinary Cardiovascular Initiative. Gemma is committed to improving the care for heart attack patients, unravelling key mechanisms underlying susceptibility and response to heart attack, with studies extending from the bench to large cohort studies and clinical trials. Discoveries in her Laboratory have been published in leading journals including the Lancet, Circulation, JACC and European Heart Journal, with > 250 publications. Gemma is a principal investigator on grants >$26 Mill. Her discoveries and innovative strategies have resulted in a US patent, and 5 provisional patents spanning diagnostic and therapeutic fields. Gemma is founder and CSO for Australian start-ups Prokardia and Kardiomics, and the not-for-profit CAD Frontiers Pty Ltd. She was awarded a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Excellence Award for Top Ranked Practitioner Fellow (Australia- 2018), NSW Ministerial Award for Cardiovascular Research Excellence (2019) and was the second female to be awarded the prestigious Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand RT Hall Prize for outstanding and sustained research achievement (2023). Gemma serves as a member of the Editorial Board of leading international journals including Circulation and Cardiovascular Research and an Associate Editor for Heart, Lung and Circulation. She is a passionate advocate for cardiovascular research, working as President of the Australian Cardiovascular Alliance with a national team to secure $220 Million Federal funding for the Mission for Cardiovascular Health, and to build new pathways for research to best serve the unmet health needs of Australians. She chairs the MRFF Mission (CV) Expert Advisory Panel. She is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and serves/has served as a non-executive Director on multiple community Boards, including the Heart Foundation. In 2023, Gemma was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), in the Australia Day Honours.
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Dr Sarah Fairley
Dr Sarah L Fairley
Dr Sarah L Fairley
MBBChBAO (Hons) PhD MRCP (UK) FRACP
MBBChBAO (Hons) PhD MRCP (UK) FRACP
Sarah was appointed as an Interventional Cardiologist at Wellington Hospital, NZ in 2015 after completing her Interventional Cardiology training in Belfast, UK and Interventional Fellowship in Wellington. Her sub-speciality interests are in complex PCI / CTO PCI, intravascular imaging and obstetric cardiology. Sarah completed a PhD in 2012, from Queens University Belfast and has an active interest in research. She has publications in high impact journals and has spoken at various national and international meetings on her areas of interest.
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Dr Eugene Wu
Dr Eugene Brian WU
Eugene Brian WU (Hong Kong)
Dr Eugene B Wu graduated with MBBS from University of London Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in 1993. He completed his MD in the University of London in 2001. He did his interventional cardiology training at Brigham’s and Women’s Hospital in Harvard University in 2006.
Dr Wu founded the Hong Kong Society for Transcatheter ENdovascular Therapeutics (HKSTENT) in 2010 and he is the Founding Director of the Society. He is also one of the Founding Directors for Asia Pacific CTO club. Dr Wu has performed more than 3000 PCI and more than 700 CTO with 250 retrograde procedures. He is a proctor for AXXESS stent, Cross Boss and Stingray, CTO intervention, and OCT imaging. He has run training courses in rotablation, complication courses, and AMI PCI.
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Dr Greg Starmer
Dr Greg Starmer
Dr Greg Starmer
Dr Greg Starmer is a Clinical and Interventional Cardiologist, and is the current Director of Cardiology at the Cairns Hospital in Far North Queensland.
His professional interests include complex coronary intervention, structural heart intervention, and the ongoing refinement of systems of care and cardiac outreach services in the Far North. He is also the current Chair of the interventional steering committee of the Queensland Cardiac Outcomes Registry.
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Dr Jack Tan
Dr Jack Tan
Dr Jack Tan
MBBS, MRCP (UK)
M Med (Internal Medicine), ACSM
FAMS (Cardiology & ICM), FAPSC, FAPSIC, FACC, FESC, MBA
Dr Jack Tan graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore in 1997. In 2007, he spent one year at UC Davis Medical Center, Sacramento with Dr John Laird to complete his peripheral vascular interventional program. He is doubly accredited for cardiology and intensive care medicine in Singapore. He is the deputy head of cardiology and director of the coronary care unit at the National Heart Centre Singapore and the head of cardiology at Sengkang General Hospital. He is a practising interventional cardiologist and holds associate professor appointments at Duke NUS and lecturer appointment at the Yong Loo Lin Medical School. He was then selected for the executive MBA course and graduated in the Dean’s list for his cohort at the Singapore Management University in 2013. He is a faculty at regional and international meetings like TCT, EuroPCR and AsiaPCR and TCTAP. He is a frequent proctor for interventional cardiology in countries like China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines.
Dr Jack Tan successfully organized the ASEAN Federation of Cardiology Congress 2012 as the scientific chairman and was the organizing chairman for the Asian Pacific Society of Cardiology meeting 2017. Currently he is an executive board member at Singapore Heart Foundation, APSIC (Asian Pacific Society of Interventional Cardiology) and ISCP(International Society of Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy) . He is the immediate past president of SCS (Singapore Cardiac Society) and immediate past board member (Continental chair) of WHF (World Heart Federation). He is the president-elect of ISCP and standing president of APSC (Asian Pacific Society of Cardiology).
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COURSE CO-DIRECTORS
Dr Mohammed Al Omary
Dr Mohammed Al-Omary
Dr Mohammed Al-Omary
MBChB, FRACP, PhD, FCSANZ
Dr Al-Omary is a Consultant and interventional cardiologist with a special interest in complex percutaneous coronary intervention and intravascular imaging.
Dr Al-Omary graduated from Mosul Medical College in Iraq and moved to Australia in 2011 where he did his physician and cardiology training in John Hunter Hospital. He was awarded FRACP in 2019. After that, he finished one year of interventional fellowship at the John Hunter Hospital. In 2021, he joined Dr Eugene Wu at Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong to undertake a chronic total occlusion and complex coronary intervention fellowship.
Dr Al-Omary is a clinical researcher, he completed a PhD on heart failure outcomes with the University of Newcastle. He has published 26 peer-reviewed articles. Dr Al-Omary has been a speaker at national and international conferences.
Dr Al-Omary has been appointed as a cardiology staff specialist at Maitland and John Hunter Hospitals.
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Dr James Xu
Dr Abdul Ihdayhid
Dr James Xu is a Staff Specialist Interventional Cardiologist and Director of Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratories at Liverpool Hospital, Sydney. He graduated from the University of Sydney Medical School in 2009. He completed his Cardiology and Interventional training at Liverpool Hospital, Sydney, and was awarded a PhD degree in 2021 before undergoing another year of CHIP/CTO Fellowship at the Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital at Northwell Health, New York, USA. He has a keen interest in CHIP/CTO intervention.
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Dr Abdul Rahman Ihdayhid
Dr Abdul Ihdayhid
Dr Abdul Ihdayhid is an interventional and structural cardiologist at Fiona Stanley Hospital and specialist in cardiac CT. He is the Director of Cardiology Research and has an academic appointment at Curtin University. Dr Ihdayhid completed fellowship training in interventional cardiology at MonashHeart, Melbourne and a PhD in intracoronary physiology and cardiac CT at Monash University. This was followed by a clinical fellowship at the University of British Columbia, St Paul’s Hospital, Canada in structural heart intervention and advanced cardiac imaging. Dr Ihdayhid is a regularly invited speaker on coronary and structural heart disease and provides training at national and international courses in analysis of structural CT. He has well-established links with both industry and leading academic centers in North America and Europe and a track record in research commercialisation.
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Dr Ho LAM
Dr Ho LAM
Dr Ho LAM
Cath Lab Director & Consultant, Tuen Mun Hospital.
Honorary Clinical Associate Professor, University of Hong Kong.
Honorary Clinical Associate Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Chairman for Tuen Mun Hospital Doctors’ Association 2017-2018.
Council Member, Hong Kong Public Hospital Cardiologists Association.
Editor, the Hong Kong Medical Journal.
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Deb Bick
Deborah Bick
Deborah Bick (Deb), is an experienced Nurse Unit Manager with over 30 years of critical care experience, specializing in Cardiac Interventional care for the past 10 years. As a seasoned professional she has a deep understanding of best practices in the interventional and cardiac care field.
Deb Currently, holds the position of Nurse Unit Manager at The Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane. Her previous positions include NUM John Hunter Cath Lab (where she was instrumental in streamlining the service, increasing volume and fostering growth in innovative therapies.) Prior to Newcastle she consolidated her experience in Melbourne ICU and CCU units, plus a variety of other rural, regional, metropolitan, and tertiary facilities.
Deb’s primary focus is supporting the Cardiac Unit team to provide the highest standard of care in an innovative and high intensity clinical space. She has an inspirational leadership quality and leads from the front. At EPIC we recognise that Nurse Unit Mangers are a vital component of any successful cardiac service and are honoured to welcome her as a Co-Director
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