Advanced Heart Failure Transplant
Cardiology (AHFTC) Fellowship Program
Stanford has a long tradition of teaching the future leaders of heart transplant. Many of the current program directors in the US and around the world trained at Stanford or were trained by a graduate of our program.
We Train Future Leaders.
The Stanford AHFTC Fellowship was established in 1989 and was among the first in the country to be certified by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), with accreditation starting in July 2013. The goal of our fellowship program is to provide outstanding care to patients with end-stage heart disease, and to train future leaders in the field of advanced heart failure, transplant cardiology, and mechanical circulatory support. We have created a rigorous and supportive training program in which fellows can reach their full potential in an environment that is committed to excellence, respect for others, innovation, diversity, and social responsibility.
The Stanford AHFTC fellowship program is a one-year training program that follows an academic calendar (July 1-June 30). At the end of the program, graduating fellows will qualify to serve as medical directors of UNOS-certified heart transplant programs and will be eligible for certification in Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiology by the American Board of Internal Medicine.
The Fellowship accepts three fellows per year, and candidates must have completed general cardiology training at an ACGME-accredited program.
The Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiology section offers a Visiting Fellow rotation for current general cardiology fellows, who are not at Stanford. This rotation can be personalized based on the individual fellows’ interests and can range from 2 to 4 weeks. Experiences offered at Stanford include:
Inpatient Heart Transplant/Mechanical Circulatory Support Service
Outpatient rotations
- Advanced Heart Failure Clinics
- Heart Transplant Clinic
- Mechanical Circulatory Support Clinic
- Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease
- Amyloid Center
Didactics/conferences
- Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiology Core Curriculum Lectures
- Cardiomyopathy conference
- Heart transplant journal club
- Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine series
- Advanced heart failure, transplant, and MCS multi-disciplinary clinical care meeting
For additional information about the rotation, please contact: cvmed_ahftc-fellowship@stanford.edu
For additional information regarding the application process, please see: https://med.stanford.edu/gme/housestaff/visiting.html
Please note: that at this time the AHFTC fellowship is unable to sponsor Canadians on Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) on J-1 visas for short-term electives (less than one year).
Core Curriculum
The AHFTC Fellows rotate through three core rotations:
Stanford Heart Transplant/Mechanical Circulatory Support (MCS) inpatient service. This service has primary responsibility for heart transplant and MCS readmissions. It also provides consultative services to all new heart transplants and MCS implants from the immediate post-operative period until patient discharge, heart transplant and MCS patient readmission requiring ICU-level care and all patients with EMCO or temporary MCS patients who may need advanced therapies. Primary patient care is performed by advance care providers.
Stanford Outpatient Clinics. The AHFTC Fellows rotate through the heart transplant clinic, MCS clinic and through many of the faculty’s heart failure clinics. As part of this rotation the fellows also participate in subspeciality areas based upon their interest, such as amyloid, cardio-oncology, Stanford Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease, pulmonary hypertension, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy clinics. This rotation also has 4-5 half days per week of non-clinical time for research, studying, writing or just enjoying all the Bay Area has to offer.
Kaiser Santa Clara inpatient service. This service covers advanced heart failure, cardiac transplant and MCS patients at Kaiser’s Northern California heart failure referral center. Kaiser has its own MCS program and a very busy ICU service with shock and temporary MCS.
Meet Our Current Heart Failure Fellows
Aly Elezaby, MD
Dr. Aly Elezaby attended college at the University of Arizona, where he studied molecular and cellular biology with a research focus on the mechanisms of genome instability. He graduated from the MD-PhD program at Boston University, with a dissertation focus on the effects of obesity on mitochondrial function and oxidative stress in the heart. At Stanford, he completed residency in internal medicine, fellowship in cardiovascular medicine, and post-doctoral research training as part of the Translational Investigator Program (TIP). His current research is focused on discovering novel regulators of mitochondrial function in inherited and acquired cardiomyopathies and developing targeted therapeutics for patients with heart disease.
Jamal Mahar, MD, Med
Dr. Jamal Mahar grew up in the sunny streets of Karachi, Pakistan. He completed his MD from the Aga Khan University Medical College and subsequently completed his Internal Medicine residency at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio where he also served as Chief Medical Resident. While in Cleveland, he pursued a Masters in Health Professions Education. He then moved to Houston, Texas for his Cardiology fellowship training at the Baylor College of Medicine. As an aspiring Clinician-Educator, he has a keen interest in curriculum development and instructional design. He is now pursuing a career in Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiology. He has an interest in hemodynamics and pulmonary hypertension. In his time away from the hospital, he is an avid hiker, enjoys long drives, and is fond of astrophotography.
Natalie Tapaskar, MD
Natalie Tapaskar, MD is originally from Chicago, IL and completed her bachelor’s degree at Northwestern University. She earned her medical degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, OH and completed her Internal Medicine training at the University of Chicago, followed by a chief year. She completed her general cardiology fellowship at Stanford University, where she became fascinated with hemodynamics and became a part of the Stanford Cardiogenic Shock Team quality initiative. Currently, under the mentorship of Dr. Kiran Khush, her research assesses the role of multi-modality imaging and ECGs in donor heart evaluation. Natalie’s clinical interests include healthcare disparities, particularly in optimizing the care of patients with cardiogenic shock via appropriate and timely interventions, and a special interest in cardiac sarcoidosis.
2022-23 HF Fellows
Joyce Njoroge, MD
Joyce N. Njoroge, MD obtained a bachelor's degree in Biology from Dartmouth College. She earned her medical degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, OH and completed her internal medicine residency at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University in Chicago, IL and fellowship training at the University of California, San Francisco. Joyce's clinical and research interests are in inherited cardiomyopathies and healthcare disparities particularly with peripartum cardiomyopathy.
Anubodh Varshney, MD
Dr. Anubodh "Sunny" Varshney is an Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiology Fellow at Stanford University. He earned a degree in biomedical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis and his MD from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. He completed residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Cardiovascular Medicine at Brigham & Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School. He engages in outcomes and epidemiology research related to cardiogenic shock, mechanical circulatory support, and the interface of drug and device therapies in patients with heart failure. Sunny also has experience advising multiple medical technology start-ups and currently serves as a Clinical Advisor at Broadview Ventures.
Brian Wayda, MD, MPH
Brian is originally from Pennsylvania and completed his bachelor’s, MPH, and MD training at Yale University. While in medical school, he studied cardiovascular health disparities under the mentorship of Dr. Harlan Krumholz. During his internal medicine residency at Columbia University, his research focused on disparities in heart transplant access and outcomes. He moved on to Stanford for general cardiology fellowship, where he further developed an interest in the “big-picture” questions around heart transplant allocation and policy. Under the mentorship of Dr. Kiran Khush, his current research applies mathematical models and cost-effectiveness analyses to inform heart donor and recipient selection.
Dinner with Grand Rounds speaker, Ryan Tedford
April 2024
Celebrating completion of Cardiology Boards!