Adult Congenital Heart Disease — Thursday, October 2, 2008 - 12 noon (EST)
Richard Krasuski, MD
Director of Adult Congenital Heart Disease Services, Cleveland Clinic
Department of Cardiovascular Medicine
Congenital heart disease is a type of abnormality in one or more structures of the heart or blood vessels that occurs before birth. About 800,000 adults in the United States have grown into adulthood with congenital heart disease. This number increases by about 20,000 each year. While some people are able to manage congenital heart disease with medications and monitoring by a heart specialist; others had heart surgery as a child, but then develop problems later into adulthood.
Join us as Dr. Krasuski explores the treatment options available for adults living with a congenital heart disease.
Dr. Richard Krasuski is Director of Adult Congenital Heart Disease Services and a staff cardiologist in the Section of Clinical Cardiology, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, at Cleveland Clinic Heart and Vascular Institute.
He is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine as Diplomate in cardiovascular disease. Dr. Krasuski's specialty interests include adult congenital heart disease including atrial septal defects, patent foramen ovale, ventricular septal defects, coarctation of the aorta, Ebstein anomaly, Eisenmenger syndrome, transposition of the great arteries, Tetralogy of Fallot and patent ductus arteriosus. He also specializes in pulmonary hypertension, mitral valve disease, cardiac catheterization, transesophageal echocardiography and mitral, aortic and pulmonic valvuloplasty.
Dr. Krasuski received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School following an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Bowdoin College in Maine, where he graduated summa cum laude and was inducted into the honor society Phi Beta Kappa. He took his residency in internal medicine at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston followed by a fellowship in cardiology from Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina, which included a subspecialty in valvular heart disease and adult congenital heart disease.
Prior to his 2005 appointment to Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Krasuski served as an officer in the United States Air Force at Wilford Hall Medical Center in Texas. During this time he served an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Washington, DC and was the clinical chair of a committee that designed educational, interactive CD-ROMs for patients with hypertension, dyslipidemia, coronary disease, congestive heart failure, and cardiac rehabilitation at the Air Force Academy in Colorado. In 2004 he was voted Researcher of the Year at Wilford Hall and was one of five physicians recognized in 2005 for their academic, clinical and research expertise.
