Dr. Praveen Varma

Dr. Praveen Varma completed his MBBS in 1992 and MS General Surgery in 1996 from Calicut Medical College, Kerala. He completed MCh from Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Trivandrum in 2000. Then, he joined Medical College, Trivandrum as Lecturer in Cardiac Surgery. He worked as Assistant Professor in Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Trivandrum till 2005.
Then he joined as Resident in Cardio Thoracic Surgery at Boston Medical Center, Boston University and he also served as Chief Resident till 2008. At BMC, he gained more experience in CABGs, Mitral Valve Repair and surgeries for Aortic root.
He worked as senior clinical fellow Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School for 2 years. At Brigham, he gained experience in Minimally Invasive Mitral Valve Repair and AVR, complex reoperation surgeries, Heart Failure surgeries including Transplantation and Ventricular Assist Device placement.
He was appointed as Additional Professor in Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Trivandrum by the senior staff selection committee.
He is currently working as the Professor and Head of the Department of Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Center, Kochi. His specific areas of interest are beating heart CABG, Ischemic Mitral Regurgitation correction, Mitral valve and Tricuspid valve repair, extended septal myectomy for Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, surgery for infective endocarditis and Heart Transplantation. He has been actively involved in resident education.
He is also a reviewer for numerous journals and is also the Editorial Board member of Annals of Cardiac Anesthesia. He has co-authored close to 50 publications in various journals.

Professional Interest

• Mitral Valve Repair, Ischemic Mitral Regurgitation
• Heart Failure and Transplantation
• Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy
• Outcome Research, Data Base
• Resident Education

Professional Memberships

• Indian Medical Association
• CTS Net

Workshops and Seminars Organized

• Mitral Valve Repair by Prof Dr Sampath Kumar, All India Institute of medical Sciences-2003
• Aortic Root Replacement by Dr Joachim Lass, Bad Bevenson Hospital, Germany- 2003
• Minimally Invasive Valve Surgery by Dr Prem Shekhar, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston-2012
• Seminar on Heart Failure Surgery by Dr Prem S Shekhar MD, Dr Luigino Nascimben MD, Mr Giovanni Cercere (ACP), BWH, Boston-2012
• CME on Amrita Heart Valve Conclave 2015- Mitral Valve Repair at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi-2015.
• CME on Amrita Heart Valve Conclave 2016- Aortic Valve Repair at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi-2016.
• CME on Amrita Heart Conclave 2017- MICS CABG at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi-2017.
• CME on Amrita Heart Conclave 2018- A workshop on Aortic Root Surgery in Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi-2018.

Additional Professional Activities

• Member, Hospital Transfusion Committee (2003 -2004).
• Member, six-sigma project (2002).
• Co-Investigator, Homograft Project (2003 -2004), Project grant from Ministry of Science and Technology.
• Associate Investigator in animal experiments, unicentric and multicentric trial for development of membrane oxygenator (1999-2004).
• Blood Conservation in Valvular Heart Diseases (2002-2003).
• Chief Investigator. Data Base for valve surgery. Project Grant from Edward Life Sciences.
• Member Board of studies for cardiac surgery, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Trivandrum (2010-2012). Revised the curriculum, developed teaching modules and evaluation protocol for Cardio-Thoracic Residents.
• Program-in-Charge, Division of Cardiac Surgery, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Trivandrum (2011- 2012).
• Member of following committees:
  • Junior staff selection (2010-13).
  • Resident Selection (2010-13).
  • Clinical Perfusionist Selection (2010-12).
  • Guidelines for Doctors in their relation to Industries and Pharma’s- Report submitted 2011.
  • Revision of working hours for employees-Report submitted in 2012.

Chair Person for Following Conferences

• Aortic Valve Repair – Prof. Dr. Pedro Del Nido – PCSI Annual Conference 2011.
• Live Workshop Mitral Valve Repair - Dr Patrick Perrier, Madras Medical Mission, Chennai- 2012.
• IACTS Annual Conference Feb 2014.
• Asia Pacific Valve Symposium-Bangalore 2014.

Invited Guest Lectures

• “Heart Team”-Guidelines on Myocardial Revascularization – PIMS, Pondicherry 2011.
• Syntax Trial- Madras Medical Mission, Chennai - 2012.
• Heart Failure Surgery - Kerala Association of Clinical Perfusion 2012.
• Post-operative care of cardiac surgery patients-Madras Medical Mission.
• Relevance of Database- Lissie Hospital, Cochin -April 2014.