Dr. Anne Gillis will be president of the Heart Rhythm Society. (Photo by Riley Brandt)
When it comes to matters of the heart, Dr. Anne Gillis is taking a leading role in putting the Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta at the University of Calgary on the international stage.
The professor of medicine—an internationally recognized heart specialist and clinician-scientist—is preparing to take the helm of the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS), the leading international organization in science, education and advocacy for cardiac arrhythmia professionals and patients.
Gillis, who will become HRS president next May, will be the second non-American (and the second Canadian) to head the prestigious 5,600-member organization.
A cardiac electrophysiology specialist who treats patients with heart rhythm disorders, Gillis’s research focuses on novel drug therapies to prevent atrial fibrillation, the most common abnormal heart rhythm disorder.
As an international leader in the use of pacemakers and implantable defibrillators, Gillis does clinical studies to examine the impact of promising new therapies.
Under her leadership, Calgary’s Cardiac Arrhythmia Program became the first centre outside the U.S. to evaluate remote monitoring, tele-health technology for patients with implantable defibrillators.
In a pilot project, patients received monitors that allowed them to download information stored in their defibrillators, and transmit it over phone lines to a secure website accessed by their physicians.
“It has been a highly successful program which has now become the standard of care for patients with implantable defibrillators,” Gillis says. “We have been able to reduce the number of direct clinic visits by half.”
Her current research interests also include collaboration with the university’s Wayne Chen, a world expert on the ryanodine receptor (a protein that regulates calcium flux in heart muscle cells) and its role in the genesis of heart rhythm disorders.
“A scientist is not successful alone. My success is through partnering with other scientists.” Gillis’s other important collaborators in the university’s internationally known cardiac electrophysiology group include Dr. Hank Duff, Dr. Derek Exner, Dr. George Wyse, MD’74, Dr. Brent Mitchell, BSc’72, MD’75, and Dr. Robert Sheldon.
