I know Dr. Natale is the most recommended EP here on this forum. But I'm in Canada and for financial reasons, I really need to stay within my health system. So I've been trying to find the best in Canada. Specifically, one that will be on the cutting edge for pulsed field ablation.
Who I'm considering is Dr Atul Verma at Mcgill (7 hour drive for me). He did a previous PFA trial and is doing another soon. He's been publishing for maybe 15 years and I think doing ablations longer. His ratemd page is positive (I know that isn't much to go on, but it is good to see lack of negative reviews). He also has a lot of leadership roles. And he is at an academic institution.
I've heard these are all good things to look for in a surgeon. I worry though that someone doing so much leading and publishing might be less handy than someone focused on doing non stop ablations day in and day out.
I know the best way to gauge is to get an appointment and ask lots of questions, but I thought I would see if anyone here has any thoughts on this EP first. The main alternative for me is the local arythmia center (St Mary's in Kitchener), which has two EPs who seem great and keeping up with the latest tech but the center has only been operating a couple years. That being said, I think they each do three ablations a day, so it is high throghput.
I should mention that my case is a bit more complicated than just Afib. I seem to have some kind of electrical alternan during exercise, maybe some re-entrant circuit. So I think this means the standard protocal PFA trial won't be an option for me but rather I'm just getting on an EPs list so that soon as PFA is approved I can get it done (I definitely want to wait for PFA as I don't like the colateral dammage of thermal and I can wait given afib espisodes are rare).
So I'm just hoping for some input on Dr Atul Verma. Does he sound like the best I can do in Canada, the closest thing to someone who lives, eats, and breaths ablations? Pehraps he is the Canadian version of Dr. Natale?
Thanks!
