The Vancouver Medical, Dental and Allied Staff Association (VMDAS) is the association for all physicians, nurse practitioners, dentists and allied staff at VGH, UBC Hospital, and GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre and the medical staff affiliated within the Vancouver community. The association represents over 1,900 medical staff within Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH).
This year, Dr. Jason Andrade was nominated by Dr. Ken Gin, and was awarded the 2023 VMDAS Scientific Achievement Award.
From the VMDAS website:
Dr. Andrade did his internal medicine and cardiology training at the University of British Columbia followed by a fellowship in cardiac electrophysiology at the Montreal Heart Institute. He joined Vancouver General Hospital as a staff cardiologist in 2012 and is currently an associate professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia and an assistant professor at the Université de Montréal.
Dr. Andrade is the Director of Electrophysiology at Vancouver General Hospital. He is co-chair of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) Atrial Fibrillation Guidelines and the CCS Device Therapy Guidelines. He is the chair of the Canadian Heart Rhythm Society (CHRS) Device Committee and medical chair for Heart Rhythm Disease for the Cardiovascular Disease Network in the province of British Columbia. Not only is Dr. Andrade clinically superb, he has also distinguished himself as a talented and prolific researcher. He has authored over 250 scientific publications predominantly in the domain of atrial fibrillation. His number of publications is impressive with over 257 articles published to date. Many of these are in the most prestigious journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine Circulation, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and Lancet. His first author of publications has ranked in the 99th percentile for citations annually for the past seven years. Out of his publications, fully 104 are first authored and 26 are senior authored. His H-factor is outstanding at 42.
Dr. Andrade’s research has predominantly focused on atrial fibrillation. He has led several multi-centre randomized clinical trials, which have changed our fundamental understanding of the management of atrial fibrillation. One of these was the Cryoballoon versus Irrigated Radiofrequency Catheter Ablation (CIRCA-DOSE) study trial which was a Heart and Stroke Foundation-funded RCT published in Circulation. This trial was described as providing invaluable information to the patient, the electrophysiologist and the medical community. The CIRCA-DOSE study has provided valuable insights into issues including quality of life, health-care utilization, sex differences, autonomic changes, risk prediction, and clinical classification of atrial fibrillation. Over a two-year span, the CIRCA DOSE study produced 18 publications allowing many junior faculty to write first authored publications under Dr. Andrade’s mentorship.
The Early Aggressive Intervention for Atrial Fibrillation (Early AF) trial was a National Centers of Excellence-funded RCT that was presented as a late-breaking clinical trial at the American Heart Association meeting in 2020 with simultaneous publication in the New England Journal of Medicine. This was one of the first trials using invasive cardiac monitoring that demonstrated that catheter ablation as the first treatment for atrial fibrillation was far superior to anti-arrhythmic drugs and reducing arrhythmia recurrences and improving quality of life and reducing hospitalizations.
The Cardiology community has embraced this study, which demonstrated that rhythm control is superior to a rate control strategy. This is what has been highlighted as one of the top studies in 2020 by Medscape and the European Heart Journal in 2021. This led to a meta-analysis of first-line ablation that was published in the Journal of American College of Cardiology by Dr. Andrade.
In 2022, Dr. Andrade presented another late-breaking clinical trial at the American Heart Association meeting, that was again, simultaneously published in the New England Journal of Medicine. This demonstrated that ablation changes the natural history of atrial fibrillation and reduces the progression to persistent atrial fibrillation compared to anti-arrhythmic drugs. This trial was recognized as one of the top clinical trials in 2022 by the American College of Cardiology, and the top story in cardiac electrophysiology in Journal Watch.
Dr. Andrade has also presented more than 400 invited lectures all over the world, including Japan, Australia, Spain, Turkey, Copenhagen, Poland, England and many Canadian and US academic centres.
He has authored several textbooks and multiple book chapters focused on atrial fibrillation, ablation, and cardiac cryoablation. In addition, he has developed several medical apps. Dr. Andrade has received multiple awards for his research contributions. These include the Dr. Robert E. Beamish Award from the Canadian Cardiovascular Society for original research that is expected to have the greatest potential impact on cardiovascular medicine, the Rising Star Alumni Achievement Award from the University of Ottawa, the Donald M. Whitelaw Award, the Joseph J. Diamond Award, the Peter J. Armanious Award, and the Richard E. Beck Prize.
Dr. Andrade is undoubtedly one of the top researchers in the world in the field of atrial fibrillation, which is a growing epidemic around the world. His research contributions will undoubtedly result in improved outcomes for these patients. Not only is his research groundbreaking, his commitment to translation is also unprecedented. He has co-chaired several iterations of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society Atrial Fibrillation guidelines that have helped to guide the treatment of this complex disease by GP’s internists and cardiologists.