Joseph Akar, MD, PhD

Joseph Akar, MD, PhD, is director of Yale Medicine’s Electrophysiology and Cardiac Arrhythmia Program. As an electrophysiologist, he treats the “electrical wiring” of the heart, which he describes as being not unlike the wiring in a house. The system must work properly, but the electricity in one of the chambers could get disrupted, he says. Heartbeat sequences that are too fast or slow—or otherwise irregular—can lead to serious problems, including stroke and sudden cardiac death. “It’s very important for the heart to have a uniform and consistent rhythm,” he says.

Dr. Akar treats a variety of issues that can develop in people of all ages, including those with otherwise healthy hearts. He uses techniques such as catheter ablation, a minimally invasive procedure that deliberately cauterizes the electrical short circuits in order to even out erratic rhythms, or arrhythmias. This technique has emerged as a treatment for complex problems such as refractory atrial fibrillation, which is the most common arrhythmia in humans, or ventricular tachycardia which is a major cause of sudden cardiac death. “The advent of ablation procedures for atrial fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia has really revolutionized the field,” Dr. Akar says.

He also has expertise in performing these ablations without fluoroscopy, an X-ray technique that can involve high radiation doses.

Patients who have heart rhythm problems should not hesitate to seek treatment, Dr. Akar says. “We’ve done a lot of work at Yale in refining our technology and techniques for the management of complex arrhythmias,” he says. “It’s been nothing but revolutionary as far as our ability to restore normal rhythms in cases that, in the past, we would never have dreamed that we would be able to.”