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Dr. Ana-Maria Vranceanu is a clinical psychologist and director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Interdisciplinary Research at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is also an associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and the James and Elizabeth Gamble Endowed Chair Co-director for MassGeneral Neurosciences. She conducts research at the intersection of psychology and medicine, with a focus on the development, testing and implementation of psychosocial interventions for patients, caregivers and dyads across the disease trajectory, in both hospital and community settings. She co-leads the Lifespan Track of the APA approved MGH/HMS internship in clinical psychology, and the NIA funded MGH Bridge the Gap T32, the NIA funded Research and Education Core of the MGH Resource Center for Minority Aging Research. With support from an NCCIH K24 she developed and runs a successful "K club" which brings together interdisciplinary trainees and junior faculty who are either developing or executing career development awards.

Dr. Tulloch will review the importance of social relationships for cardiovascular health, discuss plausible mechanisms by which relationship quality impacts heart health, and describe her research on the Healing Hearts Together program, a couples-based interventions for patients with CVD and their partners.

Dr. Heather Tulloch is the Senior Psychologist at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI), co-Chair of the Patient Partnership Council, and Director of the Cardiovascular Health Psychology lab at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. She is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and cross-appointed to the School of Psychology at the University of Ottawa. She is a member of the Women’s Heart Team and the Transplant Team at UOHI, as well as the Canadian Women’s Heart Health Alliance. Dr. Tulloch main research focus is on the development and evaluation of psychosocial interventions to improve mental health, quality of life, and CVD outcomes among cardiac patients and their partners. She provides psychological assessment and treatment services to patients with cardiovascular disease and their partners.

The first part of the presentation includes special features of ACS-induced PTSD, known predictors and consequences. In the second part of the presentation, I will focus on the results of our research group in Switzerland (Prof. Dr. med. Roland von Känel) and our current projects running at the University Hospital in Zurich. Therapeutic recommendation for the treatment of ACS-induced PTSD patients regarding research findings and clinical practice forms the conclusion.

Dr. Mary Princip’s deepest interest is combining research with clinical work. For her master’s thesis she worked on a project that examined whether sleep could increase the effectiveness of virtual exposure therapy in patients with arachnophobia. After her studies, she began her four-year training as a psychological psychotherapist with a cognitive-behavioral focus in 2011 and worked as clinical psychologist. She looked after adults with a wide range of mental illnesses and carried out assessments of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adulthood. To pursue her research interests, she started her PhD in the field of psychocardiology at the Inselspital Bern in 2013.

From 2013 to 2015 Dr. Princip, alongside PI: Prof. Dr. med. Roland von Känel, carried out a study to examine posttraumatic stress after an acute myocardial infarction as part of a project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation “MI-SPRINT – Myocardial Infarction Stress Prevention Intervention”. In this way, she was able to conduct a semi-structured consultation with a large number of patients who suffered from considerable stress from the heart attack, and at the follow-up appointments learned how to assess posttraumatic stress using a standardized clinical interview (CAPS). This project raised her enthusiasm for psychocardiology, which, as a still young field of research, offers many possibilities for clinically relevant research questions. In addition to her PhD, she was able to look after patients as a case-leading psychotherapist at the Inselspital in the department of psychosomatics and continue to gain in-depth clinical experience. Following her PhD, she headed the outpatient area of cardiac rehabilitation at the University Hospital / Inselspital Bern as a psychocardiologist from 2015-2018 and was responsible for the inpatient area of psychocardiology. 

As part of cardiac rehabilitation, Dr. Princip was a psychotherapist for patients with heart disease, conducted psycho-educational group courses with patients and their relatives, and was actively involved in congresses. In addition, she was involved in teaching and trained nurses in the field of psychocardiology. During her work as a psychocardiologist, she also completed the advanced training course in psychocardiology in Göttingen (Germany) and qualified for "Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing" - EMDR therapist. 3.5 years ago, she was able to take another step toward combining clinical and research activities on her academic path. 

In order to be able to carry out her clinical work more independently and at the same time to devote herself more in depth to psychocardiological research, Dr. Princip switched to a psychiatric-psychotherapeutic group practice. At the same time, she was able to expand her research through a position as a senior assistant at the at the Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry and Psychosomatic Medicine, University Hospital Zurich, and since 2018 has been aiming for her habilitation in the field of psychocardiology with great pleasure.

Josefin Särnholm, PhD, is a researcher and faculty member at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Division of Psychology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. Dr Särnholm completed her doctoral training at Karolinska Institutet where she developed a novel CBT treatment for atrial fibrillation (AF) that was tested in the world’s first randomized controlled trial of CBT for AF. Her work focuses on developing scalable internet-delivered, exposure-based treatments targeting avoidance behavior and cardiac anxiety in patients with cardiac disease. She has participated in a wide range of clinical trials for a somatic and psychiatric disorders and is currently involved in a number of clinical studies on the effect of CBT. Dr Särnholm is also a licensed psychologist with extensive experience in treating anxiety disorders and administering psychological treatment for somatic diseases. She is also a clinical lecturer and teaches at the clinical psychologist program at Karolinska Institutet.

Barbara Olasov Rothbaum, PhD is Director of the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program. She is a professor and Associate Vice Chair of Clinical Research at Emory School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Director of the Trauma and Anxiety Recovery Program and holds the Paul A. Janssen Chair in Neuropsychopharmcology. Dr. Rothbaum specializes in research on the treatment of anxiety disorders, particularly PTSD. She was a member of the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Study on Assessment of Ongoing Efforts in the Treatment of PTSD, and briefed the DOD, VA, House and Senate Committees on Veterans Affairs and Armed Services Committees on the IOM report results. Dr. Rothbaum has been studying PTSD treatments since 1986 and has developed, tested, and disseminated some of the most innovative and effective treatments available for PTSD. She is an inventor of virtual reality exposure therapy. She was a pioneer in applying it in the treatment of PTSD in combat veterans. She has authored over 400 scientific papers and chapters, has published 11 books on the treatment of PTSD and edited 4 others on anxiety, and received the Diplomate in Behavioral Psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology. She is a past president of the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS), is currently on the Scientific Advisory Boards for the Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA), National Center for PTSD (NC-PTSD), and the executive committee of the Warrior Care Network. She is a fellow of the ACNP (American College of Neuropsychopharmacology), the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), and American Psychological Association’s Division 56 (Division of Trauma Psychology) and was awarded the 2010 “Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Practice of Trauma Psychology” for APA Division 56 and the Robert S. Laufer Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS).

Roland von Känel, MD, is Chair of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry and Psychosomatic Medicine at the University of Zurich and Director of the Department of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry and Psychosomatic Medicine at the University Hospital Zurich. He is an internist, psychiatrist and psychotherapist, specialized in psychosomatic medicine. His research interests include biobehavioral pathways linking psychological stress with the development and clinical manifestation of cardiovascular diseases.

Sarah Garfinkel is Professor at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, where she leads the Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Group. She completed her PhD in Experimental Psychology the University of Sussex, before undergoing a training fellowship in Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the University of Michigan. Her current work focuses on brain-body interactions underlying emotion and cognition, with a particular focus on the heart. Adopting a translational perspective, she investigates altered cardiac-neural mechanisms in different clinical conditions such as anxiety, in order to devise novel clinical interventions. In September 2018, Sarah was named by the journal Nature as one of 11 "Rising Star" researchers, across all STEM disciplines internationally, and the only scientist to be selected from the UK. Sarah is also involved in the public engagement of science where she contributes to science programmes on BBC TV and radio.