I am a cardiology fellow at Cincinnati Children's. I am a part of the pediatric cardiology team, caring for children and adults with heart conditions. I was fascinated by this specialty because of the need to frequently engage a multidisciplinary team to provide the best care for the sickest patients in our hospital.

I was born and raised in Japan and came to the United States at 28 years of age. In Japan, I worked as a general pediatrician in the local community. I was fortunate to serve as a primary care pediatrician for patients with complex congenital heart diseases. Through this experience, I realized that a patient's quality of life depends not only on the quality of the surgical repair of the heart condition but also on pre-and post-surgical care and non-cardiac care.

Kids will be happy if they can eat the foods they want. Kids will be pleased if they can run and play outside as much as they want without restriction. Their quality of life is not always related to their heart condition. As a pediatric cardiologist-in-training, my clinical goal is to provide the best care for the patient, cooperating with a multidisciplinary team to improve their quality of life at home, school and work.

As a young professional, I am eager to contribute to the advances in pediatric cardiology. Although there has been significant progress in this field over the past decades, we still need many scientific studies to improve our cardiology care. As a researcher, I mainly focus on cardiac catheterization and exercise capacity. My work aims to identify how we can optimize the clinical outcomes of pediatric patients undergoing cardiac catheterization. In addition, exercise capacity in patients with heart conditions is not well studied yet, although it is imperative to maintain the patient's quality of life.

I live with my wife and twin children. We enjoy spending time together at local parks and the Cincinnati Zoo during our free time. Since I still feel new to the U.S., I am excited to learn about cultures in the country in general and to learn more about Cincinnati.