Health & Veritas: Yale's Healthcare and Health Policy Podcast The Future of Heart Care with Aakriti Gupta
Sep 10, 2026
Aakriti Gupta, an interventional and structural cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai, explores the minimally invasive revolution transforming heart valve care. She discusses TAVR versus open-heart surgery, a major trial for bicuspid valves, and persistent gender and racial disparities. The conversation also looks at AI-powered cardiology, decentralized care, and expanding access to underserved communities, alongside the challenges facing new cardiovascular drugs.
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Measles Often Kills Through Its Complications
- Measles deaths often result from complications such as pneumonia, encephalopathy, or unusual downstream injuries.
- A newborn’s splenic hemorrhage was difficult to attribute with certainty, but measles likely created the predisposing illness.
Aakriti Gupta Carried Programming Into Cardiology
- Aakriti Gupta initially wanted to become a computer engineer after her father brought home a computer from the United States.
- She chose medicine partly to make her father proud, then carried her programming ambitions into cardiology and entrepreneurship.
Valve Care Shifted From Open Surgery To Catheters
- Structural cardiology has shifted valve treatment from open surgery toward percutaneous procedures through a small groin puncture.
- Many patients walk the same day and leave the next day, though long-term durability remains the central uncertainty.
