10 minute read
Cover story
Story and photos by Stephanie Schupska
Every year, the University of Georgia recognizes 40 of its alumni who are under 40 years of age. This year, six of the recipients have ties to the Honors Program. Five live in the state of Georgia, three are physicians, and two are highlighted in our first-ever magazine to feature alumni. The two we are spotlighting—Anant Mandawat (BS ’08, AB ’08) and Catherine Marti (BS ‘02) were the only cardiologists among the 40 chosen, and both are blazing new trails in their specialties.
Dr. Anant Mandawat Anant Mandawat practices medicine at the intersection of two main specialties—cardiology and oncology. As a physician working to protect the hearts of patients who are experiencing issues because of their cancer treatments, he is at the forefront of an emerging field known as cardio-oncology.
With his move to Atlanta a year and a half ago as the new director of the cardio-oncology program at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, the Honors alumnus is helping the institute become a leader in this growing subspecialty.
His new job at Emory also did something else—it brought him home.
Anant left the South for a New England education 11 years ago, and spent his time at the powerhouses of medical instruction—Yale, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard. After residency, he moved to the research triangle, completing a fellowship in cardiology at Duke University Medical Center, where he focused on cardio-oncology and advanced cardiovascular imaging.
His goal throughout his training was to one day bring everything he learned back to his home state. Anant grew up in Augusta, attended UGA as a Foundation Fellow, pulled on red and black for every football game, and believes deeply in community. The job at Winship brought it full circle.
“When you’re training, you look for something that would be exciting, motivating, where you can make a difference every day,” he said. “Cardio-oncology really appealed to me because it’s something that’s new and requires an art to it with the patients we see. Often, people are stuck between a rock and a hard place with their cancer therapy and their cardiac complication.” Cancer therapies are designed to attack specific diseases within the body. Their use has grown tremendously over the last five to 10 years as new drugs have been approved. But as treatments like chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and radiation work to destroy cancer, their toxicity can also destroy an organ vital to a patient’s survival—the heart.
“Survival is increasing, and because of that, cardiac issues have become the forefront of what’s limiting people’s care, either from an acute (short-term and immediate) therapy standpoint or a long-term prognosis standpoint,” Anant said. “Oftentimes these patients are lost between their oncology care or their cardiology care, and often the two sides aren’t talking that well to each other. We can help bridge that gap.” Current science allows physicians to monitor their patients during cancer treatment and catch heart problems before patients show symptoms. If signs of a heart issue appear, cardio-oncologists work with a team to treat these issues quickly so that patients can then continue their cancer treatments.
The cardio-oncology program at Winship was started in 2011, and the program as it exists today was initiated in 2018 with Anant’s arrival. Right now, as the patient volume is increasing, they are in the process of hiring more people and expanding to other Emory sites. In the future, Anant’s goal is to make Winship a cardio-oncology hub for the state.
Anant’s journey into cardio-oncology started with a choice at the University of Georgia. He had a strong interest in both medicine and economics, and for a time thought he’d do a Ph.D. in economics.
He chose medicine because that’s where he felt he could make the greatest difference.
“The Honors Program and UGA did a tremendous job of exposing me to people, to the world, to experiences around the country and internationally,” he said. “When you leave that experience of being surrounded by smart, motivated, good people who want to make a difference in the world, you want to do the same thing when you come out of college.”
Anant points to the curiosity of fellow UGA students and his faculty mentors—especially through CURO—as a trait that both rubbed off on him and continues to drive him.
“Through CURO, you have access to people like Dr. Michael Pierce, who are clearly world experts in what they do, and you, even as a freshman, can go in and talk to them. They always have a curiosity in what they’re doing, and that rubs off on what you want to do with your life as well,” he said. Pierce was Anant’s faculty mentor and is now the Mudter Professor in Cancer Research and director of the UGA Cancer Center. Receiving the 40 Under 40 award from his alma mater was “humbling,” Anant said, adding that he feels a lot of gratefulness toward the university for giving him a strong educational foundation.
“Honors attracts very bright students, and they also attract students who really want to make an impact on the world,” he said. “I think those can be mutually exclusive in some academic settings, but the Honors Program does a really good job of mixing and melding those qualities together nicely.”
As Anant and his wife Suvi are building community in Atlanta and in their prospective medical fields—Suvi is completing her residency in internal medicine at WellStar, Anant is staying connected to his hometown through a medical column he writes for the Augusta Chronicle. “I think remembering where you’re from is really important,” he said. “The world goes by at a really fast speed, and time is always at a premium for everything we do. I think having that connection really helps ground me, and I feel like I can make a difference for people.”
Dr. Catherine Marti For the past 16 years, Catherine Top: Catherine Marti, left, and nurse practitioner Melinda Jenkins examine an echocardiogram of a patient in the heart failure clinic, run through the Piedmont Heart Institute. Above: Anant Mandawat, center, discusses his work in cardio-oncology with a group of Foundation Fellows in Moore College.
Marti has focused her academic and professional attention on one bodily organ—the heart. In her journey as a physician, the Honors alumna is learning as much about the engine of life as she can.
After medical school at Mercer University and a residency in internal medicine at Emory University, she went on to complete her fellowships in cardiovascular disease and then advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology at Emory. She brought all of that knowledge back to Athens in 2016, and she’s been changing the face of heart-based medicine in the area since the day she set foot in her office at Piedmont-Athens Regional Medical Center.
“When I took this job, they didn’t have a specialist in transplant cardiology or heart failure, which is the No. 1 discharge diagnosis among Medicare beneficiaries. It’s incredibly common to diagnose it in the hospital, and it can be a deadly disease,” Marti said.
“Also, the only female cardiologist in Athens was retiring as I started. I am
passionate about women’s health and I felt like I could really make a big difference in this area.”
In 2016, about 12% of practicing cardiologists in the U.S. were women, according to a recent study in JAMA Cardiology. In comparison, women made up 43% of the physicians in internal medicine—the branch of medicine physicians must study before going on to specialize in cardiology. Marti said that although “you don’t have to be a woman to treat women, sometimes listening to someone who gets it, who’s been there, who has had children, and who has gone through some of these things can be helpful.”
Heart disease can look different in women than it does in men. Females have different risk factors, like pregnancy-related issues and autoimmune diseases, that affect them at higher rates.
Marti’s cardiology group—Piedmont Heart Institute—has both a women’s heart clinic and a new women’s heart screening program, which launched in October. These programs—and her hire as a heart failure specialist—are some of the many changes Piedmont-Athens Regional is making to take care of its heart patients.
“We launched our heart failure program the moment I stepped in the door in 2016,” Marti said. “It includes a comprehensive clinic and an integrated practice unit in the hospital,” both which she directs. “We turned an entire unit, a 14-bed unit, into a place that only takes care of patients with heart failure. Everybody focuses on what we can do to help the patient be successful with this complex and deadly disease.”
The average person with heart failure has about a 20% chance of living to five years past diagnosis. While that percentage can be improved with medications, a pacemaker, or other advanced therapies, patients also have to deal with a lower quality of life. They might be extremely fatigued, short of breath, and not able to do the things they want to do.
“It’s a really deadly disease, and I think people don’t realize that,” Marti said. “We want to elevate the diagnosis so that people understand the seriousness of this disease. Our goal and mantra for our heart failure program is to help people live longer, feel better, and stay out of the hospital.”
Part of the reason Marti was drawn to Athens is the fact that in her practice, she’s not just another doctor rotating into the office for the day. She has the opportunity to build a close-knit community with her patients. “I love the fact that I get to be their doctor, and I get to see them from the very beginning of their illness to the end, and be intimately involved the entire time,” she said. “We get to know our patients very well.”
About 21 years ago, she was a freshman at UGA and just learning what it was like to live in Athens. As a pre-med student and Honors interdisciplinary studies major, she had the opportunity to choose her own path.
“I got to create my own major within the Honors Program,” she said, “and I was able to take many Honors classes—like economics and religion— that I otherwise wouldn’t have been involved in as a biology major.”
The encouragement she received “to get out there and learn new things is, to me, the spirit of the Honors Program,” she said.
This time around, her move to Athens was a little different—children’s toys instead of dorm-room furniture, realty negotiations instead of campus navigations, and commutes that involve school, daycare, and two hospitals (her husband, Jon, is an emergency medicine physician at St. Mary’s Hospital).
Marti loves the compact nature of Athens, the restaurants, shows, concerts, and sports. And she loves sharing the town—and her career as a cardiologist—with her three children. Mary Reid is in first grade, Bennett is three, and Bright is one.
Recently, she talked to Bennett’s three-year-old class about blue blood and red blood and how the heart pumps.
“They all listened to my stethoscope,” she said. “It was just so special to be able to go and talk to them. It was neat for them to see a mom who is a doctor. Some of them didn’t know that was a thing. That experience was absolutely the peak of my career. Full circle.”
Additional Honors alumni in the UGA 40 Under 40 Class of 2019 are listed below.
William W. Harkins
(BBA ’03, MACC ’03) Marietta, Georgia Global Director, Controllership, The Coca-Cola Company
Ling-Ling Nie (AB ’01)
Peachtree City, Georgia General Counsel and Vice President, Georgia Institute of Technology
Amanda Olson (BS ’03)
Houston, Texas MD, Associate Professor, Stem Cell Transplant and Cellular Therapy, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Terri R. Stewart (BBA ’03, JD ’06) Atlanta, Georgia Partner, Fisher Phillips
