Katherine Kosiv, MD, is a pediatric cardiologist with expertise in cardiac imaging and fetal cardiology. She cares for children and young adults with congenital or acquired heart disease, and pregnant women with fetuses that have a suspected congenital heart defect. She has expertise in fetal cardiology and noninvasive imaging, and performs transthoracic, transesophageal, and fetal echocardiography.
“Fetal heart development begins very early in pregnancy, and with the advances in imaging, we're able to see and diagnose most congenital heart disease,” Dr. Kosiv says. It helps that the latest imaging tools are precise enough to show tiny fetal heart structures almost down to one to two millimeters, she says. “For some infants, that is vital, because the problem or the need for intervention may occur at the moment the child is born.”
Treating a newborn with a heart problem calls for complex skills and an inquiring mind, says Dr. Kosiv, who also does research to find better treatments for her patients, and currently is interested in genetic predictors of left-sided obstructive heart diseases, such as hypoplastic left heart syndrome and aortic stenosis (a narrowing of the aortic valve opening). It also calls for the ability to foster bonds with families, she says. “I think the relationship between the physician and the patient can become very close, because it's a shared experience, in some ways.”
