14th Annual Meeting: Speaker Biographies

Craig Alexander, MD

Craig Alexander, MD was born and raised in Kentucky. He grew up in Louisville. He attended University of Kentucky for his undergraduate. He moved back to Louisville to attend Medical School at the University of Louisville. He completed his residency at the University of Kentucky. Busted out to Houston, TX for cardiology training. He then came back to Louisville to develop the Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program at University of Louisville. Dr. Alexander is passionate about Adult Congenital Heart Care in all its many forms. He is married to his wife, Katie and has 3 children (Sidney 8, Holt 6, and Jane Abby 2). He is also a huge University of Kentucky Wildcat fan.


Michelle Bay, RDCS

Michelle has been a cardiac sonographer at the University of Kentucky for 12 years. She serves as the Quality Improvement Coordinator and Team Leader in her department. When she isn’t at work, she enjoys spending time with her husband and their three young daughters.


Divyesh Bhatka, MD

Dr. Bhatka is an employed Interventional Cardiologist with Norton Heart and Vascular in Louisville, KY. He has been in practice for 15 years. His undergraduate training was at University of Michigan, with medical school at Michigan State University. He completed his internal medicine residency, and cardiology and interventional fellowships, at the University of Kentucky.


Saretta Craft, RDCS

Saretta Craft has an undergraduate degree from Eastern Kentucky University in education, and a master's degree from the University of Kentucky in Instructional Design. Saretta is a native Kentuckian, but has worked in several surrounding states, having had a rewarding career in cardiac and vascular sonography since the days of M-mode. Saretta's professional positions have included staff sonographer, technical director, and for the last 15 years, Saretta has been an educator and program director. Saretta was formerly at St. Catharine College, and is now at BCTC starting a new cardiac sonography program.


Claire Duvernoy, MD

Claire S. Duvernoy, MD is a Professor of Medicine specializing in interventional cardiology at the University of Michigan. She served as chief of the Cardiology section at the Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs Medical Center for over 10 years, and recently transitioned to a new role as director of the regional Cardiology network. Dr. Duvernoy’s research interests include cardiovascular and coronary heart disease in women, and the role of medical and lifestyle interventions in CHD prevention in men and women. Dr. Duvernoy founded the Women’s Heart Program at the University of Michigan, and has an active clinical Cardiology practice at both the University and the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.


Gregory F. Egnaczyk, MD

Dr. Egnaczyk grew up in Connecticut as the oldest of four children. At Yale University, he earned a B.S. in chemical engineering. After college he completed the Physician Scientist Training Program at the University of Cincinnati, earning both an MD and PhD in seven years. His PhD in Pharmacology & Cell Biophysics focused on the protein chemistry involved in the formation of plaques that result in Alzheimer's disease.

After completing his medical degree he moved to Boston, MA to train in internal medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Next stop was Duke University, where he completed general cardiology fellowship. At Duke, he worked as a post-doc in a Dr Ken Poss’s laboratory studying cardiac regeneration in the zebrafish. Ultimately, he figured out that his passion lay in clinical medicine as opposed to basic science research. He completed training in heart failure/transplant at Duke in 2010.


Maya Guglin, MD

Being a consummate clinician focusing on heart failure, heart transplantation, and mechanical assisted circulation, Dr. Guglin treats a vast variety of patients with heart failure and cardiomyopathies. She immediately embraced the idea of remote invasive hemodynamic monitoring, which is currently available solo through Cardiomems. She started the Cardiomems program in her hospital, convinced Capital Committee to invest into this technology, launched the program, and it is currently flourishing. They were the first ones to report Cardiomems in VADs. Her other passion is mechanical circulatory support. She serves as a Medical Director of the VAD program at UK. They currently implant over 30 assist devices per year, not counting short and intermediate term pumps, and the LVAD population in her clinic is currently higher than evet at this institution and is about 60 patients.

Dr. Guglin is much vested in their wellbeing. It is known that while mortality decreases in patients with LVADs, number of hospital admissions remains quite steady, with the bulk of them being due to gastrointestinal bleeding and stroke. As a compassionate clinician, she wants to help them; as a scientist, she wants to learn more about the nature of it and hopefully to advance the field, to enable other clinicians to help their patients.


Vedant Gupta, MD

Vedant Gupta, MD received his medical degree from the University of Cincinnati. He did his residency and a Chief Resident year for Internal Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. He joined the University of Kentucky for general cardiology fellowship. He has served as chief fellow as well as did additional subspecialty training in Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging. He joined as faculty in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Kentucky in June 2017. He is certified with the American Board of Internal Medicine, Cardiology and Echocardiography and a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Associate Program Director of the General Cardiology Fellowship Program.


J. Scott Hayes, Pharm.D., BCPS

Dr. Hayes obtained his Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Kentucky in 2010. Following graduation, Dr. Hayes completed a pharmacy practice residency at Saint Joseph Hospital in Lexington, KY. Dr. Hayes is an assistant professor at Sullivan University College of pharmacy and His current practice site is the Ambulatory Internal Medicine Clinic at the University of Louisville Hospital, where he focuses in managing diabetes via a multidisciplinary approach to care. Dr. Hayes serves on the Kentucky pharmacist association’s governmental affairs committee, Kentucky society of health-system pharmacist’s public policy committee chair, American society of health-system pharmacist’s house of delegates member.


Julia Jones, MD

Julia earned a BA as a Presidential Scholar at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, and completed Post-Baccalaureate Studies at the University of Kentucky Graduate School. She earned a BSN Summa Cum Laude from the University of Kentucky College of Nursing in Lexington, Kentucky, and is pursuing a DNP–Executive Nursing Graduate Program at the UK College of Nursing.

She worked at the bedside in the Cardiovascular ICU at UK HealthCare until assuming her current role where her responsibilities include monitoring quality and program improvement for the ventricular assist device and ECMO program; ensuring VAD program maintains disease specific certification from The Joint Commission; working in conjunction with Medical and Surgical directors, primary care areas, and multidisciplinary team to coordinate care and improve outcomes for VAD and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) patients; leading projects to create the MCS specialist and ECMO transport program; ensuring the MCS program continues robust outreach program to increase visibility in the community; managing the daily operations of heart transplant, VAD, and MCS Coordinators and support staff; and monitoring costs and reimbursement for VAD and ECMO programs.


John Kotter, MD

John Kotter, MD completed his medical school training at the University of Utah. He then completed a residency in internal medicine as well as his fellowship in cardiovascular medicine and advanced echocardiography at the University of Kentucky. He practices at the University of Kentucky and Lexington VA Medical Center.


Lindy Lady

Lindy Lady has more than 40 years of experience in healthcare that includes coding, auditing and health care compliance. As the Medical Business Advocacy Manager for the KMA, Lindy provides her expertise on professional practice issues to KMA members, physicians, and other organizations. Lindy stays focused on Kentucky’s Medicare and Medicaid expanding patient population; explaining changes in Medicare and Medicaid coverage, advocating for reform when needed, answering coding questions and providing assistance with billing issues that sometimes impede reimbursement.


Kelvin Lau, MD

Dr. Kelvin Lau is a pediatric cardiologist and electrophysiologist with University of Louisville Physicians – Pediatric Cardiology. He is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his medical degree from the Yale University School of Medicine. He also holds a master of public health degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He completed his pediatrics residency, pediatric cardiology fellowship, and pediatric electrophysiology fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. His current practice includes the noninvasive and invasive electrophysiology in children and adults with congenital heart disease and general pediatric cardiology.


Andrew Leventhal, MD

Andrew R. Leventhal, M.D. received his medical degree from Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. He completed his residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Boston. He completed a fellowship in cardiovascular disease and interventional Cardiology at Johns Hopkins University. He is certified with the American Board of Internal Medicine in Cardiovascular Disease, Interventional Cardiology, Critical Care Medicine, and Adult Congenital Heart Disease.


Sunil Mankad, MD

After participating in a 6 year accelerated BS/MD program, Dr. Mankad completed Fellowships in Critical Care Medicine and Cardiovascular Disease at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. He then completed an Advanced Cardiac Imaging Fellowship (Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Transesophageal Echocardiography) at Allegheny General Hospital, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Dr. Mankad is board certified in Internal Medicine, Critical Care Medicine, Cardiovascular Medicine, and Echocardiography. He is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, the American College of Chest Physicians, and the American Society of Echocardiography. Since 2006, he has been a member of the Division of Cardiovascular Disease at Mayo Clinic, Rochester. He currently is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and serves as Director of Transesophageal Echocardiography as well as Associate Director of the Cardiology Fellowship at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA. He has served on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Echocardiography from 2013-2016 and will be the Chair of the American Society of Echocardiography Scientific Sessions in 2018. He has published more than 100 scientific manuscript. His research interests include post-infarction left ventricular remodeling, three-dimensional echocardiography, valvular heart disease, and new technologies in echocardiography.


John McConnell, MD

J. Wesley McConnell, MD is a pulmonary and critical care physician in Louisville, KY. He is Director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Center of Comprehensive Care at Kentuckiana Pulmonary Associates in Louisville. In addition, he is adjunct professor of medicine for the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY. He has over 25 years of experience treating pulmonary hypertension patients, utilizing all commercially available medications. He also has served as principal investigator in over 25 PH clinical trials.


Shaun Mohan, MD

Dr. Shaun Mohan, MD, MPH, CEPS-P, is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Kentucky Children’s Hospital. As part of the development of the Joint Pediatric Heart Care Program with Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center, he was hired to help build an invasive pediatric and congenital EP program at the University of Kentucky. His clinical interests include ablations and device therapy in pediatric patients and patients with congenital heart disease, including the adult congenital heart disease population. His research interests include arrhythmia management in congenital heart disease patients, channelopathies, and quality improvement in invasive electrophysiology.


William O'Connor, MD

With a several decade long experience as an Autopsy pathologist (at Univ. of Ky in Lexington) in the field of Pediatric and Adult Cardiac Pathology, Dr O’Connor is always grateful to have the opportunity to educate other professionals . For the past 14 years he has participated as a Faculty Tutor for a twice annual, 3 day, Hands-on Cardiac Morphology Course in London England, invited by Professor Yen Ho. The course is devoted to anatomy of the normal heart and congenital heart defects and is sponsored by Royal Brompton/Imperial College London, with EBAC CME credit.


James Quintessenza, MD

Dr. Quintessenza has built a reputation as one of the leading cardiothoracic surgeons in the US. He served All Children’s Hospital (later named All Children’s Hospital John Hopkins) in St. Petersburg, Florida, for 26 years – 19 of those years as medical director and chief of pediatric cardiac surgery. He is currently Chief of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at Kentucky Children’s Hospital and Professor of Surgery at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center


Preeti Ramachandran, MD

Dr. Ramachandran is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Kentucky, Lexington. She completed her cardiology fellowship and advanced imaging training from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Ohio. Her interests include cardiac MRI and computed tomography and imaging based research to impact and improve decision making and outcomes in congenital heart surgery.


Arash Seratnahaei, MD

Arash Seratnahaei, MD is a cardiologist specializing in advanced cardiovascular imaging in Ashland, KY. He joined King's Daughters Medical Center after completing cardiology and advanced cardiovascular imaging fellowships at the University of Kentucky Medical Center.


Randall Starling, MD, MPH

Randall C. Starling is Professor of Medicine Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of the Case Western Reserve University, past Head of the Section of Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant Medicine, the Medical Director of the Kaufman Center for Heart Failure and a Staff Cardiologist in the Robert and Suzanne Tomsich Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Cleveland Clinic. He also served as Vice Chairman of Cardiovascular Medicine, Operations. Dr Starling was an elected member of the Cleveland Clinic Board of Governors from 2010-2015. He was interim chair, cardiovascular medicine, Cleveland Clinic Florida from 2011 -2013. Dr. Starling completed his undergraduate work in biology and graduated cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh. He continued his education at the University Of Pittsburgh School Of Public Health, where he graduated summa cum laude with a Master’s Degree in Public Health. He received his medical training at Temple University, Philadelphia, where he was an Honor Graduate and inducted into Alpha Omega Alpha.


Stacy Taylor, Pharm.D., MHA, BCPS

Stacy (Amburgy) Taylor is a 1999 graduate of the UK College of Pharmacy and is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy. She completed a Pharmacy Practice Residency in 2000 and an Internal Medicine/Pediatric Specialty Residency in 2001 both at Shands at the University of Florida. She obtained a Master of Health Administration degree at Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health in 2008 and is a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist.


Carole A. Warnes, MD

Dr. Warnes is a Professor of Medicine and a consultant in the Department of Cardiovascular Diseases and Pediatric Cardiology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

She received her medical degree from Newcastle upon Tyne University in England and then after general medical training pursued cardiology training in London at the National Heart Hospital. Here she developed an interest in adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) after working with Jane Somerville. She then took a research position at National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States before returning to the National Heart Hospital in London for another two years as a British Heart Foundation Scholar and Senior Registrar working in ACHD.

Mayo Clinic
She joined the Department of Cardiovascular Diseases at Mayo Clinic in 1987, where she began the Adult Congenital Heart Disease Clinic.

Honors & Awards
Cardiovascular Teacher of the Year 8 times

Extramural
Founding member of International Society for Adult Congenital Heart Disease (ISACHD)


Jennifer L. Wintergerst, LLP

Jennifer Wintergerst is a member of the Firm’s Health Care Service Team and the Data Privacy and Security Service Team. She concentrates her practice in the areas of complex healthcare litigation, investigations and regulatory compliance. She assists clients with Medicare and Medicaid enrollment and termination issues, governmental audits and investigations and False Claims Act litigation. Ms. Wintergerst provides guidance to healthcare clients across the industry to enable them to comply with the Anti-Kickback Statute, the Stark law, HIPAA and various Medicare and Medicaid laws and regulations. She conducts internal investigations regarding potential overpayments and data security incidents and assists clients with the necessary reports to HHS OIG and OCR. She also routinely represents physicians, nurses and other licensed professionals with disciplinary actions before the professional regulatory boards and assists providers with HHS OIG exclusion and reinstatement.


Lucinda Wright, MD

Dr. Lucinda Thurman Wright is Associate Professor of Pediatrics and serves as Medical Director of the Marfan Syndrome and Connective Tissue Disease Clinic at U of L and Medical Director of Fetal Cardiology at Norton Children’s Hospital. A native of Bowling Green, Kentucky, Dr. Wright is a 1994 graduate of University of Louisville College of Arts and Sciences and a 1998 graduate of the University of Louisville School of Medicine. She completed a pediatric residency and pediatric cardiology fellowship at Cohen Children’s Medical Center (formerly Schneider Children's Hospital) in New York City. Dr. Wright’s special interests include Marfan Syndrome and the diagnosis and management of congenital heart disease using advanced cardiac imaging including fetal echocardiography, transesophageal echocardiography and transthoracic echocardiography. Dr. Wright is board certified in both General Pediatrics and Pediatric Cardiology.