UCalgary cardiologist, researcher recognized nationally

Dr. Debra Isaac, MD, a cardiologist, researcher and global health advocate, has been recognized nationally as the recipient of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society Women in Cardiovascular Medicine/Science Mentorship Award. 

“My career has been filled with challenges, but to know I have had a positive influence on other people feels really good,” says Isaac, who specializes in advanced heart failure, cardiac transplantation and echocardiography.

Isaac’s decades-long career in health began as a nurse at the Winnipeg General Hospital / Health Sciences Centre, graduating in 1977.

She moved to Calgary shortly after graduation, taking on a role in the intensive care unit (ICU) at the Calgary General Hospital. She rose quickly, becoming assistant head nurse and a clinical educator in the ICU/coronary care unit. 

Working with these very ill patients peaked Isaac’s interest in cardiology and hemodynamics. Always interested in improving care for patients, she developed an extensive manual on hemodynamics for residents. That manual was later expanded and published in 1984 as a medical textbook, Hemodynamics for Critical Care (Prentice-Hall), used in critical care education.

It was while completing this work that Isaac began medical school at the University of Calgary. 

Isaac’s nursing background provided her with a foundation for medical school, and she was more than happy to share her knowledge. 

“I was fortunate to have had a good basic knowledge and understanding of the processes of patient care, and I ended up doing a lot of mentoring and tutoring of my student colleagues, which helped my learning as well,” says Isaac. 

Isaac completed her internal medicine residency in Calgary, including rotations in the same ICU she had worked in for a decade. She went to Northwestern University in Chicago for her cardiology, echocardiography and cardiac transplant training. 

Isaac returned to Calgary in 1992, completing two years of research fellowship in the lab of Dr. John Tyberg, a world-renowned expert in hemodynamics and member of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute. Her project focused on hemodynamics in heart failure and the impacts of various medications on venous capacitance and ventricular function.

Research efforts

Isaac founded UCalgary’s Heart Failure Clinical Research Program (HFCRP) in 1994, continuing her collaboration with the Tyberg lab. Over her career, Isaac has published around 60 peer-reviewed articles, books and book chapters.  The HFCRP, now led by Dr. Jonathan Howlett, MD, has grown and continues to make significant contributions nationally and internationally. 

Isaac also helped lay the foundation for advanced heart failure medicine in Canada as a founding member and past president of the Canadian Cardiac Transplant Network. She has served as medical director of the Southern Alberta Transplant Program since 2018 and founding director of Calgary’s Division of Transplant Medicine, which formed in 2021. 

Isaac sat on the executive of the Canadian Blood Services Organ Donation and Transplantation Expert Advisory Committee from 2012-2016. She has contributed to numerous guidelines panels for the Canadian Cardiovascular Society, including the Consensus for Women and Ischemic Heart Disease, numerous heart failure guidelines and updates, the first Consensus on Cardiac Transplantation, the Consensus on Mechanical Circulatory Support, as well as the second CCS Consensus on Cardiac Transplantation which she co-chaired.

Global health

Isaac is also an active global health advocate. In 2012, she cofounded the Guyana Program to Advance Cardiac Care (GPACC). The program provides critical cardiac resources in the country’s largest public health-care facility, the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, located in the capital city of Guyana.  

These resources include a cardiac intensive care unit, outpatient heart function clinic, pediatric cardiology clinic, in-patient ward cardiology service, active echocardiography and treadmill lab, and a cardiology electronic patient database to help manage patient records and track patient care. 

Over the years, GPACC has partnered with Gift of Life International, helping to provide more than 150 pediatric cardiac surgeries and a similar number of pediatric interventional cardiac catheterizations. Thousands of patients — both paediatric and adult —have been treated and numerous health care providers have been mentored and trained by dedicated volunteers from around the world through these programs.

Isaac’s dream was to create lasting change for the Guyanese through a world-class health-care training program. That goal has been achieved with formal educational programs in partnership with the University of Guyana, including a postgraduate diploma in echosonography, bachelor’s degree in cardiovascular nursing, ECG technician certificate, and most recently a formal echocardiography fellowship. Dozens of Guyanese health-care providers have been educated through GPACC, paving the way for a self-sustaining program.

Mentorship

Isaac’s recognition as a mentor comes as no surprise to Dr. Kristin Lyons, MD, who first met Isaac in 2013 when she started her cardiology fellowship at UCalgary. 

Isaac’s mentorship has meant a lot to Lyons. In fact, the young cardiologist notes Isaac helped shape her career. 

“[Isaac] has been a huge support to me both as a trainee and as a colleague,” says Lyons. “She goes out of her way to mentor trainees and more junior staff and is always available to discuss a difficult case. She also helped me navigate being a new mother and physician supporting me during my maternity leave and being shoulder to lean on along the way. I would not be an advanced heart failure cardiologist or probably even in Calgary without Dr. Isaac.”

Ever the encourager, Isaac has some advice for individuals looking to start a career in cardiology. 

“Don’t let anything stop you,” she says. “Cardiology is an amazing specialty because there is such a breadth of what you can do. It’s very patient facing, and you get the opportunity to work in amazing multidisciplinary teams. I would say just go for it.”