Dr. Syed joins First Coast Cardiovascular Institute after completing his interventional cardiology fellowship at the University of Arizona/Banner University College of Medicine in Phoenix. He trained at Cleveland Clinic Foundation’s Fairview Hospital, where he was appointed Chief Resident of the internal medicine residency program. He followed that with cardiovascular medicine training at the University of Toledo, where he served as Chief Fellow. During his seven years of training, he has grown as a clinician, a proceduralist, a researcher and a teacher. He led multiple quality improvement initiatives and committees. This interest in quality improvement burgeoned into a pursuit of a Master’s in Public Health, which he completed at the University of Toledo, graduating Summa Cum Laude. He has pursued his academic interests by being consistently involved in research with more than forty publications in peer-reviewed journals over the last several years. He has also presented at national conferences like CRT, SCAI, TVT, TCT and VIVA. He is deeply passionate about preventive healthcare. He strongly believes in the notion that prevention is the best management for any ailment. “Most of the heart diseases, especially the ones rooted in atherosclerosis are truly preventable”, says Dr. Syed. “I feel there are multiple pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical tools at a physician’s disposal that are underutilized in practice. I believe in a patient-centered approach where lifestyle changes, counseling, screening, and medicine all come together to effectively preempt an emergency room visit”. He has a deep interest in innovation in endovascular procedures. He states, “Interventional cardiology was founded as a discipline by those aspiring to innovate in the spirit of helping more by doing less. We owe it to the pioneers of this field and to our patients, to continually evolve, innovate and simplify minimally invasive therapeutic options”