Dr Katrin Balkhausen
Profile
I graduated from Medical School at the Freie Universitat in Berlin (Germany) in 2001 and received my medical approbation in 2003. I spent 1 year in full time research and was awarded a Doctor of Medicine (MD) with magna cum laude in 2003. I practiced as a junior trainee in New Orleans (US), Rome (Italy), Berlin (Germany) and Haywards Heath (UK) and continued with my specialist training in medicine and cardiology in Berlin (Germany). I spent the final 4 years of my specialist training in cardiology at Oxford University Hospitals (UK) and am registered for both, medicine and cardiology, with the GMC.
I was appointed consultant cardiologist in 2015 at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading where my outpatient work includes regular general cardiology clinics assessing and managing patients presenting with chest pain, breathlessness, palpitations, dizziness or collapse, murmurs or with a known background of valve disease, coronary disease, arrhythmias, heart failure, hypertension, hypercholesterolaemia, as well as assessing patients for cardiac risk calculation and reduction, pre-op assessment prior to non-cardiac surgery and family screening for relatives of patients with inherited heart disease.
I hold regular specialist clinics for patients with Inherited Heart Disease / Cardiomyopathies and Pulmonary Hypertension.
I have a special interest in imaging with expertise in transthoracic echocardiography, contrast and bubble echocardiography, stress echocardiography (exercise and pharmacological) and transoesophageal echocardiography. I am the Echocardiography Lead at Royal Berkshire Hospital, accredited with the British Society of Echocardiography and remain local PI and involved in research in echocardiography. I also oversee lists and report on non-invasive coronary assessment with cardiac CT.