Melvin M. Scheinman, MD, FHRS, Distinguished Teacher Award recipient

1935 –

Biography

Melvin M. Scheinman, MD, FHRS, was born in Brooklyn, NY, received his BA from Johns Hopkins University, and his MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He did his house officer training at the University of North Carolina, and his cardiology training at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF). The latter, where he currently is Emeritus Professor of Medicine and immediate past Chief of the Electrocardiology and Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology Section (Moffitt Hospital), has been his academic home ever since. Along the way, and among his many fine accomplishments, he was also the 10th president of our Society.

Scheinman is truly an extraordinary teacher. He has done it at the bedside, in the clinical laboratory, in the conference room, in the classroom, in the seminar, in the tutorial, with the written word (original scientific contributions, review articles, chapters in books, edited books) and as an Associate Editor of Circulation, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, and Pacing and Cardiac Electrophysiology.

His aptitude for teaching was recognized early in his career (1971) when he was one of the original recipients of the American Heart Association’s Teaching Scholar Award. In 1975, he was awarded a National Library of Medicine grant for production of self-instructional tapes, and subsequently, he was involved in the production of ACCEL tapes and NASPETapes (he was on the NASPETapes Editorial Board). Over the past several years, he has developed a series of teaching videos for electrocardiography, electrophysiology and cardiac arrhythmias for use with lay groups and physicians. These tapes are quite remarkable for their graphics and clarity. His superb abilities as a teacher are also manifest by the large number of postdoctoral fellows from all over the world who have flocked to him, and who now serve as academics and community specialists.

At the national level, Scheinman has organized courses for the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology (ACC) as well as the Heart Rhythm Society. For many years, he was a co-director of the ACC Board Review Course, directing the section on clinical cardiac electrophysiology; a member of the board of the American Board of Internal Medicine Qualifying Exam for Cardiac Electrophysiology (1993-1998), and received the Gifted Teacher Award from the ACC in 2001.

Dr. Scheinman is recognized internationally as one of the preeminent educators in the field of electrophysiology and has received numerous teaching awards at UCSF, including the Dean’s Special Commendation for Teaching Excellence (1971) and the Kaiser Teaching Award (1972), the Senior Student Commendation for Excellence in Teaching (1973 and 1975), the AHA Paul D. White Citation for International Service (1978) and the prestigious UCSF Distinction in Teaching Award in 2004. Perhaps the most impressive testament to his teaching abilities is that he has trained numerous (perhaps the majority of) academic electrophysiologists who have themselves contributed substantially to the field of electrophysiology and are Directors of prominent programs around the country and the world. He was the recipient of the 2009 Distinguished Teacher Award for the Heart Rhythm Society.

While his teaching record is inspiring, perhaps the largest contribution Dr. Scheinman has made to the field of cardiology has been through his research. Dr. Scheinman’s contribution to the field of electrophysiology and to cardiology in general has been profound. He is credited with the discovery of catheter ablation. His NIH-funded research in this arena heralded a new era for treatment of arrhythmias. Prior to this discovery in the 1980s, patients with arrhythmias were either treated with often-ineffective medication or with open-heart surgery.

Dr. Scheinman’s research led to the development of techniques using a transvenous catheter approach to ablate the AV node to control atrial fibrillation and to eliminate of substrates for AV node reentry and accessory AV pathways (WPW Syndrome). This discovery is arguably the most important development in the field of cardiac electrophysiology in the past 20 years, transforming the field from largely a diagnostic one to one that is able to cure patients of arrhythmias with a high success rate and low morbidity. Catheter ablation, the development of which is credited to Dr. Scheinman, has transformed cardiac electrophysiology and the treatment of patients with arrhythmias much the same way the development of angioplasty has transformed the care of patients with coronary disease.

Over the years, his continued research on catheter ablation was among the first to demonstrate the ability to cure patients with a wide variety of arrhythmias including AV node reentry, Wolf-Parkinson-White Syndrome, ventricular tachycardias, automatic junctional tachycardias, inappropriate sinus tachycardia and several forms of atrial tachycardias. All of this research is considered to be landmark work and is published in top journals.

In addition to development of ablative techniques, one of the main focuses of Dr. Scheinman’s research is to understanding the mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias. His contribution in this area is enormous. His research was the first to prove the existence of nodo-fascicular tracts as a possible cause of so called "Mahaim" tachycardias. He has also developed techniques for distinguishing automatic junctional from nodo- or atrio-fascicular tachycardias and has defined the mechanisms involved in atypical flutter circuits. He was the first to demonstrate double wave reentry in humans. His research has also led to several seminal observations defining the electrophysiologic substrate of VT during sinus rhythm and during pacing.

Another area in which Dr. Scheinman’s work has made substantial contribution includes that of sudden cardiac death. He was the first to describe the use and limitations of chronic pacing and emphasized the limitation of left cervico-thoracic sympathectomy for patients with the Long QT syndrome. He is currently studying a large group of genotyped LQT patients to examine the role of 24 hr. Holter monitoring in distinguishing LQT types. He was the first to describe use of the Tp-Te interval as a measure of ventricular dispersion for the different subtypes of patients with the Long QT syndrome and is currently completing studies evaluating use of T-wave alternans as well as the evolution of symptoms for patients with the LQT syndrome.

Dr. Scheinman’s research is crediting for establishing the use of measurement of the H-V interval in patients with bundle branch block to predict development of AV block. These studies form the basis for current recommendations for pacemaker implantation.

He has had a long term interest in studying the electropharmacologic effects of antiarrhythmic agents. For example, his research has defined the use of adenosine for diagnoses of various types of supraventricular tachycardia. He was the first to establish the efficacy of Amiodarone and Ibutilide use in patients with atrial fibrillation. He did some of the original work studying the efficacy of I.V. amiodarone and conducted a national trial proving the efficacy of I.V. amiodarone for patients with ventricular tachycardia. This drug is currently a staple for the management of patients with ventricular tachycardia.

Dr. Scheinman remains active in research with several ongoing projects on the mechanisms of arrhythmias and had a sabbatical with Dr. Ken Chien at the University of California San Diego in order to learn more about molecular biology and genetics of arrhythmias. Clearly, Dr. Scheinman has achieved international prominence in the field of cardiology with his groundbreaking research. In recognition of Dr. Scheinman’s accomplishments, he has received numerous awards, including the Mirowski Award for Excellence in Cardiology, the Albert Einstein Outstanding Alumnus Award, Pioneer Lecturer of the Japanese Cardiac Pacing Society as well as the NASPE Pioneer Award. He has also been selected as chair of the NASPE Guidelines Committee for Catheter Ablation and co-chair of the AHA/ACC/ESC Group for Development of Guidelines for Treatment of Patients with Supraventricular Arrhythmias, and served (or has served) on the editorial board of all major cardiology journals.