“As a medical student, I was fascinated by ECGs and how defects in ion channels can be manifested on a surface ECG. At that point, I knew that cardiac EP was the career for me,” says Dr. Taylor Liu, a clinical cardiac EP for Kaiser Permanente Thrive in Santa Clara, CA. The science and daily intellectual challenges are what excite Dr. Liu and in 2013 he had the opportunity to try a new technology that would greatly enhance his problem solving skills: robotic ablation. “Robotic ablation has been indispensable for us at Kaiser,” he says.

Dr. Liu relates the story of a patient with a large number of disabling PVCs. A previous ablation at another hospital had failed because the source of the outflow tract appearing PVC could not be identified. This time, robotic ablation would be used. After mapping in the RV and LV outflow tract did not yield a site, Dr. Liu decided to look at the LV summit. This time, he was able to find and suppress the PVCs. “Low energy ablation was done which was successful in PVC suppression. This case would not have been successful without use of the robotic system,” he says.

Congratulations, Dr. Liu, for finding success in EP and staying up to date with the latest technology!