Michael Shapiro, D.O., has been named director of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and cardiovascular computed tomography (CT) at Oregon Health & Science University with appointments as assistant professor in both the Department of Medicine and the Department of Radiology in the OHSU School of Medicine.

Shapiro arrives at OHSU following a two-year fellowship in cardiovascular imaging at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Previously he was a cardiology fellow at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Beth Israel Medical Center, where he had also served as chief medical resident and resident in internal medicine. He earned his medical degree in 1998 from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey - School of Osteopathic Medicine, where he was class valedictorian, and an undergraduate degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton.

He holds board certifications in internal medicine and cardiovascular diseases from the American Board of Internal Medicine, in adult echocardiography from the National Board of Echocardiography, and in nuclear cardiology from the Certification Board of Nuclear Cardiology.

“Dr. Shapiro’s appointment moves us another step closer to our goal of building the best cardiovascular program on the West Coast,” said Sanjiv Kaul, M.D., Distinguished Professor of Cardiology and head of OHSU’s Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. “He brings to Oregon a level of expertise in MRI and CT technology that cannot be found anywhere else in the state, and I am pleased that we have been able to attract him to OHSU.”
 
“Dr. Kaul’s vision and the opportunity to be part of a rapidly growing and evolving cardiology division dedicated to a comprehensive imaging program are what appealed to me,” said Shapiro. “MRIs are widely available but cardiac-specific MRIs are not, and most MRI technologists do not have the training required for it. Even many university hospital systems don’t have this capability. But MRIs can provide vital clues with respect to heart function, valvular function, and tissue damage in ways that other tests can not. As a complement to cardiac MRI, we use cardiac CT to get extraordinarily detailed images of the coronary arteries (blood vessels of the heart) in a noninvasive manner.”

OHSU’s heart specialists are leading the way toward more precise and less-invasive methods for preventing, detecting and treating cardiovascular disease, the nation’s No. 1 killer. Its cardiac imaging program offers cardiology patients some of the most innovative and detailed systems being utilized anywhere in the country, including next-generation 64-slice CT scanners that produce the most accurate and detailed images of the heart obtainable, myocardial contrast echocardiography – a nonsurgical ultrasound of the heart – that can quickly detect decreased blood flow in the arteries, “open” MRI scanners and nuclear imaging. With the support of a $650,000 grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, OHSU is developing a first-of-its-kind, ultra-high-speed digital camera to advance the diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities of cardiovascular imaging technologies based on the use of microbubbles pioneered by Kaul and the team of doctors he brought to OHSU with him from the University of Virginia two years ago.