The physician

One physician stands behind every word on this site.

Dr. Tushar Shah, MD, FACC, is the founder and medical director of the Heart Attack and Stroke Prevention Center, and the physician who reads every inquiry this practice receives. His record is set out below, line by line, because a practice that asks for your trust should show its work first.

Dr. Tushar Shah, MD, FACC, professional portrait
Dr. Tushar Shah, MD, FACC, FAHA, FHFSA, FASE, FACPFounder & Medical Director, Heart Attack & Stroke Prevention Center

The record

Every credential, on the record.

Drawn from the credentialing record and the curriculum vitae. Where a role or a certification is historical, the wording says so.

Certification
  • Board-certified in Cardiovascular Disease American Board of Internal Medicine · 2001 / 2011 / 2021 · active MOC
  • Board-certified in Internal Medicine American Board of Internal Medicine · 2000 · active MOC pathway
  • Board-certified in Adult Echocardiography National Board of Echocardiography · 1999 / 2009 · active maintenance
  • Has held board certification in Advanced Heart Failure & Transplant Cardiology (ABIM), Cardiovascular CT (CBCCT), Nuclear Cardiology (CBNC), and Clinical Hypertension (ASH)
  • Fellow of the American College of Cardiology FACC
  • Fellow of the American Heart Association FAHA
  • Fellow of the Heart Failure Society of America FHFSA
  • Fellow of the American Society of Echocardiography FASE
  • Fellow of the American College of Physicians FACP
Training
  • MD, with Highest Honors University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine
  • BA, Biochemistry, cum laude University of Pennsylvania
  • Internal Medicine Duke University Medical Center
  • Fellowship, Cardiovascular Disease (Chief Cardiology Fellow) Baylor University Medical Center
  • Fellowship, Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging (Cardiac CT/MRI) St. Vincent Heart Center of Indiana
  • Fellowship, Advanced Heart Failure & Transplant Cardiology University of Kentucky, Gill Heart & Vascular Institute
Academic & leadership
  • Former Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine University of Iowa
  • Former Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor The Ohio State University
  • Former Assistant Program Director, Cardiovascular Fellowship Kettering Medical Center
  • Founder and Medical Director Heart Attack and Stroke Prevention Center
  • Former Director of Cardiovascular Imaging Kettering Health System
  • Former Medical Director, Advanced Heart Failure & Transplant Cardiology University of Louisville
  • Former Medical Director, Advanced Heart Failure and Mechanical Circulatory Support Geisinger Health System
Research & honors
  • Site Principal Investigator, major cardiovascular outcome trials IMPROVE-IT · PROMISE · TRACER
  • Co-Investigator, Immunosuppression Regimens in Cardiac Transplantation with Clyde W. Yancy, MD, UT Southwestern
  • Co-Investigator, 3D Image-Guided Surgery Using Real-Time Echoplanar MRI UNC Computer Vision Laboratory (Pizer) · GE Corporate R&D Computer Vision Laboratory · Brigham and Women’s Hospital Radiology · ETH Zürich Computer Vision Laboratory
  • Research Assistant, Epigenetic Regulation of the Human Growth Hormone Gene Cluster with Nancy E. Cooke, MD · Stephen A. Liebhaber, MD · University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
  • Research Assistant, Myocardial Energetics During Cardiac Ischemia in a Canine Model with James E. Lowe, MD · Duke University School of Medicine, Cardiothoracic Surgery
  • Cardiac Care Provider of the Year Central Texas · American Heart Association · 2004
  • Founding member Society for Cardiovascular Computed Tomography
  • Served on the Board of Directors American Heart Association · Go Red for Women
  • Former Instructor, Department of Decision Science The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
  • Distinguished Medical Scholars Program University of North Carolina School of Medicine

The voice

The work, in his own words.

“I walked away from the cath lab because I couldn’t keep meeting people after the worst day of their lives, when the work that mattered most was the part nobody had done years earlier.”
Dr. Tushar Shah, on why he practices prevention
“We must practice medicine of the heart with a heart.”
Dr. Tushar Shah, American Heart Association Heart Ball speech

Why this record matters

Trust in medicine has fallen.
The remedy is showing the work.

1 Perlis et al., JAMA Network Open: trust in physicians and hospitals, 71.5% (April 2020) to 40.1% (January 2024). KFF: trust in one’s own physician, 93% (June 2023) to 85%. Different surveys, different field dates: one direction.

Between April 2020 and January 2024, public trust in physicians and hospitals fell from 71.5% to 40.1%. Trust in one’s own physician held higher (93% in June 2023, then 85%) but moved in the same direction.

That decline will not be answered by reassurance, and it will not be answered by marketing. It is answered the slow way: credentials on the table, sources in the margin, caveats in plain type. A record a skeptical reader can check, line by line.

Trust in medicine, two surveys Slope chart. Trust in physicians and hospitals fell from 71.5 percent in April 2020 to 40.1 percent in January 2024. Trust in one’s own physician fell from 93 percent in June 2023 to 85 percent. 100 75 50 25 0 93% JUN 2023 71.5% APR 2020 85% 40.1% JAN 2024
Physicians & hospitals · Perlis et al., JAMA Network Open Your own physician · KFF. Two surveys, fielded on different dates, drawn to one vertical scale. The answer to the decline is not reassurance. It is showing the work.

The first step

A conversation begins the work.

Tell us who you are and what you are looking for. A physician, not a scheduler, not a bot, reads every inquiry.

References · this page

Every figure, sourced.

  1. Perlis RH, et al. JAMA Network Open: trust in physicians and hospitals, 71.5% (April 2020) to 40.1% (January 2024). KFF survey: share who trust their own physician, 93% (June 2023) to 85%.
  2. Credentials on this page are rendered from the physician’s curriculum vitae, credentialing record, and practice biography (About Tushar N Shah MD). Roles he no longer holds are marked “Former”; active certifications are noted as such.
  3. Quotations are rendered verbatim from the practice’s records: the American Heart Association Heart Ball speech and the physician’s one-page note on why he practices prevention. The marked omission […] appears in the source text as delivered.