Dr. Ram Vijayaraghavan

MD, FRCPC, Steering Committee Director

Interventional Cardiologist
Director, Cardiac Catheterization Lab
Scarborough Health Network
Toronto, Ontario

Ram Vijayaraghavan completed his medical school (1999) and subsequently internal medicine (2003) and cardiology training (2005) at the University of Toronto. In 2007 he finished a 2-year fellowship in interventional cardiology and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto.  He has published research in both cardiac MRI and complex PCI.  He developed the regional Cardiac MRI program at Scarborough Health Network (SHN) and currently serves as Director of the Cardiac Cath lab at SHN.  With his colleagues, he has developed high volume, state-of the art programs for complex coronary angioplasty, chronic total occlusion (CTO) and Intra-coronary imaging.  He developed a novel community assessment clinic for trans-catheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) and has performed this procedure in collaboration with Sunnybrook hospital.  He leads a Canadian national online meeting for CTO PCI with other experienced operators, with guests from around the world.  He formulated and directed the first CanCTO+Complex PCI Meeting in Canada in 2023 with national representation by leaders in CTO/Complex PCI as well as workshops and live coronary cases.  He is passionate about education in the field, through participating as faculty in international conferences and being a proctor for CTO and intra-coronary imaging.  His cardiology office practice is focused on complex coronary and valvular disease with Heart Health Institute in Toronto.

Dr. Akshay Bagai

MD, MHS, FRCPC

Interventional Cardiologist, St. Michael’s Hospital
Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario

Dr. Akshay Bagai is a practicing interventional cardiologist and Past Director of the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at St. Michael’s Hospital. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr. Bagai received his MD and trained in Internal Medicine and Cardiology at the University of Toronto. He completed his training in Interventional Cardiology at St. Michael’s Hospital. He obtained a Masters degree in Health Sciences from the Clinical Research Training Program at Duke University, USA. He returned to Toronto and joined the Division of Cardiology at St. Michael’s Hospital in August 2013. His clinical and research interests are closely aligned and include complex, high risk and total occlusion percutaneous coronary intervention, and transcatheter interventions for mitral and tricuspid valve disease.

Dr. Basem Elbarouni

MBBCh, FRCPC, DRCPSC

Interventional Cardiologist, St. Boniface Hospital
Associate Professor, University of Manitoba
Program Director, AFC Interventional Cardiology Fellowship
Clinical Director, CTO Program
Winnipeg, Manitoba

Basem Elbarouni graduated medical school from Tripoli University, Libya with first on class honors. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine and Cardiology at the University of Toronto, followed by a fellowship in Interventional Cardiology at St. Michael’s Hospital, University of Toronto. He is an interventional cardiologist at St. Boniface Hospital, Winnipeg, with an appointment of associate professor at the University of Manitoba. He is the Program Director for the AFC Interventional Cardiology fellowship program. His research interest focuses mostly on CTO revascularization outcomes and techniques and CHIP. He has been an invited speaker to several national and international scientific meetings, focusing mainly on complex coronary interventions and chronic total occlusion PCI.

Dr. Allison Hall

MD, FRCPC

Interventional Cardiologist, Eastern Health and Cardiology Consultants, St. John’s, Newfoundland
Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland
St. John’s, Newfoundland

Dr. Allison Hall, MD, FRCPC is the Co-Director of the Complex Coronary/CTO Program at NL Health Services in Newfoundland, Canada.

Dr. Hall completed medical school at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She then completed her internal medicine training at University of Ottawa in Ontario and her general cardiology training at University of Calgary in Alberta. This was followed by her interventional cardiology training at Foothills Medical Centre in Alberta. She returned to Newfoundland, where she became a staff cardiologist/ interventional cardiologist in 2017. In 2018 she pursued a CTO/CHIP Fellowship at the Minneapolis Heart Institute with Dr. Emmanouil Brilakis and Dr. Nicholas Burke. Following this, she returned home to practice in Newfoundland, the province with the highest incidence of CV mortality, where a single cath lab services an over 500K population.

Dr. Hall has published over 30 peer-reviewed articles. She currently serves as faculty for CTOPlus, CRT, AHA, ACC, Complications Course, TCT, SCAI and is Executive Committee Director (Coronary) for CVI and a founding Steering Committee Member for CanCTO. She was recently selected as an international live case operator for MLCTO Meeting in June 2024 in Nice, France. Her interests include high-risk coronary intervention, CTO-PCI and cardiogenic shock management.

Dr. Sanjit S. Jolly

MD, MSc, FRCPC

Interventional Cardiologist, Hamilton Health Sciences
Stuart Connolly Chair in Cardiology
Professor of Medicine, McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario

Dr. Jolly is an interventional cardiologist at Hamilton Health Sciences and Professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. He has formal training in clinical trials with a M.Sc. in Health Research Methodology from McMaster University. He is a leader in interventional cardiology. He was the principal investigator of the RIVAL trial, a randomized trial of 7021 patients comparing radial and femoral access for coronary intervention. He is also the principal investigator trial of the recently completed TOTAL trial, an international randomized trial (N=10,700) of thrombectomy during primary PCI.  He is currently leading the CLEAR SYNERGY OASIS 9 trial a randomized trial comparing colchicine vs. placebo and spironolactone vs. placebo in patients with ST elevation myocardial infarction with an embedded SYNERGY stent registry. Dr. Jolly also specializes in chronic total occlusion and complex percutaneous coronary intervention.

Dr. Sanjog Kalra

MD, MSc, FRCPC, FACC, FSCAI

Brompton Funds Professor of Interventional Cardiology,
Director – Interventional Cardiology Fellowship Program
Peter Munk Cardiac Centre,
Toronto General Hospital
Toronto, Ontario

Dr. Sanjog Kalra is an interventional Cardiologist and Cardiac Critical Care Physician at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, Toronto General Hospital, where he focuses on on the treatment of patients with complex and high-risk coronary artery disease. He trained at the University of Toronto, and Dalhousie University before moving to the United States in 2015 to become one of the early Complex, High-Risk (and Indicated) Patient (CHIP) fellows at Columbia University Medical Center. He is recognized internationally as an expert in the area of complex coronary revascularization and modern percutaneous hemodynamic support therapies. In October 2023, Dr. Kalra was awarded the Brompton Funds Professorship in Interventional Cardiology at the University Health Network and the University of Toronto, using which he will focus his research and academic interests on novel approaches to complex PCI education, and the outcomes associated with CTO PCI and percutaneous hemodynamic support therapies. Dr. Kalra also attends in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Toronto General Hospital and was recently appointed as Director of the Interventional Cardiology Fellowship Program at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, Toronto General Hospital.

Dr. Matthew Sibbald

MD, MHPE, PhD, FRCPC

Staff Interventional Cardiologist, Hamilton Health Sciences and Niagara Health System
Associate Professor of Medicine, McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario

Matt Sibbald is Associate Professor and scientist at McMaster University. Matt is Director of the Cardiology Residency Program, Associate Dean Undergraduate Medical Education and Chair of the Area of Focused Competency Committee at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Matt holds a Masters and PhD in medical education from Maastricht as well as an MD from the University of Toronto.