Director of the Jesselson Integrated Heart Center, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Israel
Director of the Jesselson Integrated Heart Center, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Israel
Prof. Glikson graduated cardiology training at Sheba Medical Center, Israel and continued in a electrophysiology and pacing fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. He headed the Pacing and Electrophysiology Unit at Sheba Medical Center since 2002, and the Davidai Arrhythmia Center since 2010. He was appointed an associate professor of cardiology in 2006, full professorship in 2012. He is an adjunct professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science.
The Davidai Arrhythmia Center, developed from scratch over the years, is the first and most prominent arrhythmia center in Israel, which deals with all kinds of advanced EP procedures and has been the pioneer in CRT, epicardial ablations modern extraction techniques, and advanced VT ablation techniques. The Center, under the Prof Glikson’s leadership, served as a tertiary referral center for complex arrhythmia and device cases and was the pioneer in bringing into the country new tools such as CRT implantation, modern extraction techniques, AF ablation using various techniques, VT ablations and more. The Center has a research lab that was built by donations raised by Prof Glikson, and maintained by competitive grants.
Many Israeli and international fellows underwent training at the Center under the guidance of Prof Glikson, including fellows from Turkey, Greece, Romania and Brazil, some of whom were funded by competitive European grants to training centers.
As part of his role at the Heart Center, Prof Glikson established the Mayo-Sheba collaboration program that brought together physicians and researchers from both institutions with collaborative meetings, several collaborative research projects, clinical collaboration and a fellowship program that brought several Israeli fellows from Sheba to train at Mayo for one to two years. He also initiated the Israel Heart Society – Mayo Clinic training program that brings prominent Israeli fellows to one or two year training in the USA.
Prof Glikson’s main research interest is in cardiac pacing, defibrillation and CRT with more than 180 publications in the field. His list of publications includes 200 peer reviewed scientific research and review articles as well as 13 book chapters. He was an invited speaker at over 80 international meetings and abstract presenter of more than 370 abstracts. He was proctor of CRT, extraction and LAAO procedures in various international centers and serves as member on several editorial boards of EP journals (Europace, PACE, previously Heart Rhythm). Prof. Glikson was the initiator and principal investigator of several investigator–initiated research projects including Detect SVT, Rapture, and Raise CRT trials, in collaboration with Mayo Clinic researchers.
Over the years Prof. Glikson served as investigator and PI in more than 50 company initiated studies run at the Arrhythmia Center and at the Heart Institute and funded by companies. The Arrhythmia Center also serves as proctoring center for several medical device companies and Prof Glikson himself often serves as a proctor of device companies in several places around the globe.
Prof Glikson served as the secretary and the chair of the Israeli working group on pacing and electrophysiology. During his term as chairman he established several successful national registries including the Israeli ICD registry that has produced numerous studies and publications. He was elected Secretary General of the Israel Heart Society (2004-2008) and as President of Israel Heart Society from 2015-2017.
Given his deep involvement and understanding of the Israeli health system, Prof Glikson was recently nominated by the Israeli Minister of Health to the National Health Basket Committee which is the most important body that selects all the new medications and technologies to be funded by the government every year. This is a very busy and very prestigious task that expresses the acknowledgement of his thorough understanding and wide view of the Israeli health system.
Prof Glikson is very well acknowledged in the European Heart Rhythm Association. He serves as the co-chair of the EHRA scientific program committee including the Europace 2015 meeting. Since June 2015 he is the chair of the scientific program committee of European Heart Rhythm Association was in charge of the Europace 2017 meeting. In his previous role on the scientific document committee Prof Glikson coauthored several scientific and consensus European documents and was the senior author and leader on a consensus paper regarding use of left atrial occluder. He is currently a member of the ESC scientific program committee and the chair of a new consensus document on LAA occlusion. He was recently elected to serve as a board member (councilor) of the European Society of Cardiology 2018-2020.
Prof Glikson serves as the co-president of the International Dead Sea Symposium, a prestigious international meeting in electrophysiology and one of the most important international scientific meetings in Israel.
Prof. Glikson has extensive knowledge and understanding of the Israeli health care system as well as of international cardiology societies and organizations. He has broad acceptance and close relationships with leaders of the American and European cardiology communities.
Over the years Prof. Glikson has raised more than two million dollars in donations and grants to the Arrhythmia Center, Heart Center and to the Israel Heart Society and raised company support for many academic activities meetings and activities of the Israel Heart Society.