Benjamin Z. Galper, MD, MPH

Benjamin Z. Galper, MD, MPH, is currently a structural and peripheral interventional cardiology fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. A graduate of Harvard College, Harvard School of Public Health, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Dr. Galper completed his medical and general cardiology training at Columbia University Medical Center and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He also completed a research fellowship at the Harvard Clinical Research Institute. He has co-authored at least 14 peer-reviewed journal articles and has served as an ad hoc reviewer for several esteemed peer-review journals. Galper is currently seeking a clinically-focused academic role in structural intervention, and plans to simultaneously pursue a career in clinical research and policy.

Why did you decide to pursue interventional cardiology?

There are few fields in medicine where you can directly save or dramatically change someone’s life through a relatively short procedure. It’s exciting to be able to use your technical skills and technologies to literally abort someone’s heart attack or to save someone who is in a dangerous arrhythmia from ischemia. I’m also very interested in innovation in medicine, and I think interventional cardiology is one of the most innovative fields in medicine because it’s constantly evolving. For example, the PARTNER study started around the same time I started my internship, and the way we treat aortic stenosis has changed dramatically since then.

What has been your most meaningful clinical experience thus far?

During one of my first weekend calls last year, we had a young woman as a patient who had ventricular fibrillation cardiac arrest from a heart attack. We brought her to the lab in persistent cardiac arrest and she had an occluded LAD. We opened it up, and she survived and walked out of the hospital 3 or 4 days later. It was just an amazing experience to be able to do that. It was probably one of my first true STEMIs and really left an indelible mark on me in terms of our ability to help people and move fast and make quick decisions. There aren’t so many other fields where you’re willing to take a patient who is essentially almost dead in front of you to the operating room or to a procedure. To be able to do that and know how to treat them and be confident in your ability to do that quickly is pretty amazing. 

What is the biggest challenge facing interventional cardiology fellows today?

I think it’s probably trying to learn everything; it’s impossible. But getting exposed to as many procedures and different approaches in such a short period of time is the goal. A year, or even 2 years, is such a brief period of time to learn the profession for the rest of your life. The challenge is not just mastering one skill but also trying to get as many skills as possible. As a second-year fellow I realize that fellowship is the foundation to build your skills to approach any future type of intervention or procedure. Having strong coronary skills will do you well in the structural and peripheral worlds, and going back to your basics will always help you to be able to do complex procedures in the future. There’s always this pull to see more new stuff but you have to remember to go back and be really good at the basics to succeed in more complex procedures.

Who has had the biggest impact on your interventional cardiology career and why?

I have had many really good mentors. But overall, Dr. Laura Mauri has been most impactful. I’m interested in being a really good interventionalist but also excelling at research and answering challenging clinical research questions. She has managed to balance those really well. She’s really well-skilled in the cath lab—a very efficient and excellent interventionalist—but she also somehow finds time to address clinical research questions in innovative ways. That’s the kind of physician I would like to be. She has taught me to always be incredibly focused on what I’m doing. So when you’re in the lab, you focus on being in the lab, and when you’re outside, you focus on the research and other academic pursuits. But she has also taught me the importance of not overcommitting and ensuring that what I do commit to is truly important to me and my career.

What is something that people might not know about you?

I’m very involved in policy, both with the American Medical Association and the American College of Cardiology. We as physicians have to be the ones advocating for our patients and for our profession. We have to make sure that Congress and policy makers know what’s important when they are making decisions. It’s easy to think when you’re a fellow that you’re the lowest person on the totem pole and that your voice doesn’t matter, but in my experience lobbying in Congress or advocating in front of policy makers, the viewpoints of fellows and other young physicians are actually most important. This is because we are the future of the healthcare system that is being designed and developed right now, and we’re the ones who are going to be most affected by these decisions. So we have a tremendous amount of sway if we make our voices heard.

Also, I’ve been to all 50 states!

What his nominator, Laura Mauri, MD, MSc, says:

I have now known Ben as a clinical and research fellow for 6 years of clinical cardiology; clinical research; and interventional coronary, vascular, and valvular heart disease training. I was delighted when Ben approached me for mentorship and chose to join my research group at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Clinical Research Institute. He has been able to develop skills in data analysis concurrently with advanced clinical training that allow him to identify important areas of clinical uncertainty and contribute meaningful research. Training in trial design, decision analysis, and cost effectiveness were particularly useful for studying some of the tradeoffs inherent in patient care. Ben is sincere in his commitments to patient care and research, as we well as quality of care and health care policy in cardiovascular intervention.  On top of all that he is a great team player in the cardiac cath lab, an enthusiastic educator for trainees, and a caring physician.  

* To nominate a stellar cardiology fellow for the Featured Fellow section of TCTMD’s Fellows Forum, click here.