Cardiac Conditions & Concerns in the Student Athlete —
Thursday, February 19, 2009 - 12 noon (EST)

Every year, nearly 200 teenage athletes in this country suffer sudden cardiac death during a game or while training. Dr. Richard Sterba speaks out on how to best prevent these tragedies. Cleveland Clinic pediatric cardiologists believe that the best practice is for pediatricians and family physicians to use national or published screening guidelines. Any patient with abnormal or suspicious findings should then be referred to a pediatric cardiologist for further investigation.

Richard Sterba, MD, has been a Staff Physician at Cleveland Clinic for more than 25 years. He is board-certified in pediatrics and pediatric cardiology. He trained in electrophysiology at Duke University Medical Center and he is a member of both the Pediatric and Cardiovascular Institutes at Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Sterba's clinical areas of expertise include arrhythmia management, adult congenital heart disease, cardiac problems in athletes, pediatric syncope and pediatric cardiology. He has a special interest in the use of cardiac ablation to treat supraventricular tachycardia, especially in patients with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome.

Dr. Sterba has been named one of the "Best Doctors in Cleveland" the last three years. He evaluates patients at the Cleveland Main Campus, and at the Wooster and Lorain campuses.