Dr Gherardo Finocchiaro

Dr Gherardo Finocchiaro is a consultant cardiologist at Royal Brompton and Harefield hospitals and an honorary senior lecturer at St George’s University of London.

Dr Finocchiaro completed his undergraduate and postgraduate training at University of Trieste, Italy. He spent one year at Stanford University, California, focusing his research on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and athlete’s heart, gaining a post-doctoral diploma. He subsequently specialised cardiovascular magnetic resonance at The Heart Hospital imaging center and St George’s Hospital in London. He has level III accreditation in CMR (EACVI) and is accredited in echocardiography by the British Society of Echocardiography.

Dr Finocchiaro has also worked two years as a Consultant Cardiologist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital.

Dr Gherardo Finocchiaro deals with many aspects of cardiology, including hypertension heart failure, possible coronary artery disease and valvular heart disease.

He has specialist interest and expertise in:

• heart muscle diseases which often have a genetic basis such as arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy, dilated cardiomyopathy, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
• athlete’s heart and differential diagnosis with cardiac conditions
• cardiac screening in athletes
• evaluation of families where there has been a sudden cardiac death that might represent a genetic condition
• investigation of family members of patients with suspected inherited cardiac condition
• echocardiography and cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging.

Dr Gherardo Finocchiaro has research interests in physiological cardiac adaption to exercise, cardiomyopathies and causes of sudden death in the young.

During his PhD at St George’s University of London, he investigated the causes of sudden cardiac death in athletes and the role of family screening.

Dr Gherardo Finocchiaro focuses on sudden death in young individuals, cardiomyopathies and ‘athlete’s heart’. He has published on major international journals such as NEJM, JACC, European Heart Journal. He has presented in several sessions at the European Society of Cardiology Conference.

Dr Gherardo Finocchiaro has over 10 years of experience in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and is an honorary clinical lecturer at St George’s University of London. He is deputy course director of MsC in Sport Cardiology at SGUL.