Team

Dr Julian Collinson

Julian Collinson is a Consultant Cardiologist at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. He also works at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London.

As well as interest in all areas of non-invasive cardiology, including heart failure, his main specialist interests are interventional cardiology (angioplasty and stent insertion) and the implantation of pacemakers (including biventricular devices) and defibrillators in the treatment of heart failure and sudden death syndrome.

His main research interests are in the management of acute coronary syndromes (heart attacks and unstable angina) and he has published in peer-review journals on these subjects as well as heart failure and valvular heart disease. He has contributed to books on angina (both stable and unstable) and heart failure.

Dr Rakesh Sharma

Rakesh Sharma is a Consultant Cardiologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London. His clinical expertise includes the management of patients with heart failure, coronary angiography, advanced echocardiography and complex pacing (including implantation of defibrillators and biventricular pacemakers). He qualified from Guy’s and St. Thomas’s Hospital in 1995 with triple honours and underwent postgraduate training in tertiary centres in London. He won a British Heart Foundation fellowship to study his PhD in Cardiology at the National Heart and Lung Institute for which he was awarded the Young Investigator Prize at the American Heart Association. Subsequently, he has worked at Harefield and the Chelsea and Westminster hospitals as a Cardiology Specialist Registrar prior to his appointment as Consultant Cardiologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital. He is the principal investigator for a randomized controlled trial of biventricular pacing in patients undergoing high risk cardiac surgery.

Dr Michael Cooklin

Michael Cooklin is a Consultant Cardiologist at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. He is clinical lead for cardiology and for the arrhythmia workstream of the South East London Cardiac Network. He qualified in Manchester and trained in London, Newcastle and at the Universities of Virginia and Maryland, USA.Beyond general cardiology, he has expertise in all aspects of clinical arrhythmias. This includes non-invasive assessment and treatment, curative ablation, and all aspects of device therapy, implanting pacemakers, defibrillators, and resynchronisation devices for treating heart failure. He has an MD in cellular cardiac electrophysiology and has published widely on clinical arrhythmias

Dr Carl Brookes MA DM FRCP

Trained at Brasenose College, Oxford and St Thomas’ Hosp, London
Qualified 1988
Cardiology training at Hammersmith and Royal Brompton Hospitals, London
MD in right ventricular physiology 1999 from Oxford.

Consultant Physician and Cardiologist at Basingstoke & North Hampshire NHS FT since 2000

Jointly responsible for setting up and running a comprehensive interventional and non-invasive cardiology service.

Duties and responsibilities include:

• acute general medicine on-call 1:12
• cardiology on-call 1:2
• heart failure
• pacing
• PCI
• angiography
• RACPC
• clinical management with budgetary responsibility for £50m.

Principles:
‘Small is beautiful!’
‘Good things come to those who wait’