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Ritu Sachdeva, MD

Ritu Sachdeva, MD headshot

Professor of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine

Medical Director, Cardiovascular Research Core (CIRC). Pediatric Cardiologist, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta

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PubMed

Biography

Ritu Sachdeva, MD is a Professor at the Emory University School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics. She went to Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi, India for her medical school. She did her Pediatric residency at the University of Illinois, Chicago followed by a Pediatric Cardiology fellowship at Mayo Clinic, Rochester. Prior to joining Emory in July 2012, she served as the Director of Echocardiography and Director of Continuing Medical Education at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. She was also the recipient of the Betty Lowe Endowed Chair in Pediatric Education. Her clinical focus has been pediatric echocardiography and she has always been actively involved with education and research endeavors. Currently, she is serving as the Medical Director of Cardiovascular Imaging Research Core (CIRC) at the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. In this role, she has been expanding the ongoing research endeavors and developing new collaborations within the institution as well as with other institutions.

Research

Dr. Sachdeva's research interests include the implementation of Appropriate Use Criteria for cardiac imaging in pediatric patients and improving resource utilization in the care of congenital heart disease. Other research interests include the identification of morphometric predictors of outcomes in congenital heart diseases, the application of novel technologies in evaluating cardiac function, and quality improvement in pediatric echocardiography. These novel technologies include Doppler tissue imaging, strain and strain rate imaging, and three-dimensional echocardiography. She has also established a program for non-invasive assessment of vascular function in pediatric patients. This includes assessment of carotid intima-medial thickness, endothelial function assessment using brachial flow-mediated dilation, and measurement of arterial stiffness using applanation tonometry. The CIRC lab is now one of the handful of programs in the country to possess these unique capabilities and is actively engaged in projects using these novel techniques in kids to assess their vascular function. She has also developed a multicenter image processing core lab facility at CIRC where cardiac imaging data from multiple sites can be analyzed and interpreted. With the help of her team at CIRC, Dr. Sachdeva aims at providing high-quality, non-invasive cardiac imaging support for investigators involved in research involving pediatric patients.

Research Areas of Interest

  • Appropriate Use Criteria and resource utilization for cardiac imaging in pediatric patients.
  • Association of morphologic features on echocardiography with outcomes in congenital heart disease.
  • Use of novel imaging techniques in cardiac function assessment.

Education

Medical Degree

  • Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi, India

Residency

  • Pediatrics, Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi, India
  • Pediatrics, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL

Fellowships

  • Pediatric Cardiology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN

Research Center(s)