Dr. Anthony A. Vasile, DO

A leading heart-failure specialist, Mitchell T. Saltzberg, M.D., FACC, FAHA comes from one of America's largest cardiology practices, Midwest Heart Specialists, in Downers Grove, Ill., where he was medical director of the heart failure program and echocardiography core laboratory as well as co-director of the pulmonary hypertension program. He is noted for developing and using proactive strategies for the care of heart failure patients, employing novel devices and drug therapies. "Increasingly with heart failure-perhaps more than any other disease-we are developing the ability to predict when a heart failure patient is likely to decompensate [fail to maintain adequate blood circulation] before becoming overtly symptomatic to allow us an opportunity to intervene and maintain the patient's quality of life," he says. "This has been an exciting and intensely focused part of our work over the last several years." Dr. Saltzberg also has a strong interest in new pathways for the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary hypertension. "There has been an explosion of novel drug therapies to treat pulmonary hypertension in the last few years, and access to these therapies has never been greater," he says. "I've worked closely with physicians, nurses and ancillary providers at Christiana to expand the pulmonary hypertension program at Christiana Care and provide options for patients locally who may have had to travel outside the region for their care in the past," he explains. Dr. Saltzberg earned his medical degree from Yale University, completed an internal medicine residency at the University of Chicago Hospital and was a cardiology fellow at Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago. He is board-certified in cardiovascular disease. He is also board-certified in advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology by the American Board of Internal Medicine. He is the only cardiologist with this certification in Delaware and one of only 264 in the nation. Dr. Saltzberg was also appointed associate professor of Medicine at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, in September 2010 in recognition of his academic achievements in his field. He has lectured widely and published numerous articles and book chapters in his field. He has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation since 1998 and currently sits on the National Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplantation Committee of the American College of Cardiology.