Lay summary
The applicant is a PhD candidate in the Department of Medicine, Otago University. He is a cardiologist who has the clinical and research experience required to complete the project with the supervision and support available from supervisors and research team. This research project focuses on patient reported outcomes after cardiac surgery. Cardiac surgery is one of the main procedures available to treat patients with coronary artery disease which is a major cause of health loss in New Zealand. Patients will have echocardiography before surgery and six months postoperatively. The imaging will be done both under resting conditions and during limited exercise to unveil subtle abnormalities in cardiac function. The imaging parameters will be correlated with characters of tissue samples collected form the patients’ hearts during surgery. This study will provide a clinically applicable set of imaging criteria that can be used to predict functional capacity after open heart surgeries.