Dr. Postema, MD, PhD, is a certified cardiologist-electrophysiologist at the Heart Center of the Amsterdam University Medical Centers, The Netherlands. Dr. Postema received both his propaedeutic and medical degree cum laude at the Free University in Amsterdam and his philosopher’s degree also cum laude at the University of Amsterdam. During his medical training he performed research at the Department of Cardiology and the Rayne Institute at Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’ School of Medicine, King’s College London, United Kingdom.

Dr. Postema is involved in the three academic pillars: patient care, medical education and research.

His patient care particularly encompasses patients with arrhythmias, pacemakers or implantable defibrillators. This involves both outpatients as well as inpatients, and both atrial and ventricular ablation procedures and implantations of pacemakers, defibrillators and cardiac resynchronization therapy. Dr. Postema is also strongly involved in cardiogenetics, (orphan) drugs associated with ventricular arrhythmias, and in innovative treatment modalities for recurrent ventricular arrhythmias, e.g. cardiac radioablation (stereotactic arrhythmia radiotherapy). He is certified by the Dutch Cardiac Society (NVVC) and European Society of Cardiology (ESC) as a cardiologist and by the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) as an electrophysiology specialist (ECES) and as a cardiac device specialist (ECDS).

His medical education involves teaching cardiology, particularly electrocardiography and electrophysiology, to medical doctors, nurses, students, allied professionals, patients and their relatives, locally and internationally. The latter is exemplified by his involvement in the non-profit CardioNetworks Foundation devoted to improving free access to medical knowledge throughout the world. He also is the founder and director of BrugadaDrugs.org devoted to provide free worldwide access to knowledge on drug use in Brugada syndrome for medical professionals, patients and their relatives. His patient education particularly involves visual communication on cardiac disease.

His pre-clinical and clinical research is based on two intertwined topics, 1) the diagnosis, pathophysiological mechanisms, treatment and prevention of malignant cardiac arrhythmias (i.e ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation) both in inheritable and acquired cardiac disease, and 2) electrocardiography in inheritable and acquired cardiac disease, and on the population level with special focus on age, sex and ethnicity. Both these subjects are investigated within strong international collaborations.

Amongst others, is Dr. Postema a member of the Scientific Advisory Group on Cardiovascular Issues of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), member of the European Reference Network for rare and low prevalence complex diseases of the heart (ERN Guard-Heart) and editorial board member for multiple international cardiology journals.

MD, PhD, Cardiologist-electrophysiologist, EHRA Certified Electrophysiology Specialist (ECES), EHRA Certified Cardiac Device Specialist (ECDS)