Our Team

Dr David Tanous

Cardiologist

Dr David Tanous is a consultant and interventional cardiologist at Westmead Public and Private Hospitals. He completed his cardiology training at Westmead Hospital before completing a PhD at the University of NSW. He spent several months at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead before spending two and half years at Toronto General Hospital, the largest adult congenital heart disease centre in North America, where he sub-specialised in adult congenital heart diseases and cardiac diseases in pregnancy.

He currently performs the majority of complex adult congenital heart disease catheter interventions for patients in New South Wales including transcatheter pulmonary valve replacements, pulmonary artery stenting, coarctation stenting and other complex interventions. David has had extensive experience in other structural interventions including PFO/ASD/PDA/VSD/left atrial appendage closures and is involved in the transcatheter aortic valve programme at Westmead Hospital. He performs coronary interventions at Westmead Public and Private Hospital. He is actively involved in the management of patients with pulmonary hypertension at the Westmead Pulmonary Hypertension clinic and the management of cardiac diseases in pregnancy with the Westmead Hospital High Risk obstetric unit.

Associate Professor David Richards

Cardiologist

Associate Professor David Richards co-founded Westmead Private Cardiology in 2000, and continues to see patients for consultation at Westmead Private Cardiology, when he is not busy with his seven grandchildren.

Dr Michael Skinner

Cardiologist

Dr Michael Skinner co-founded Westmead Private Cardiology in 2000. He trained in cardiology at Westmead Hospital and completed a PhD in vascular biology from Sydney University.  He was awarded a travelling scholarship by the National Heart Foundation for post doctoral studies at The University of Washington in Seattle USA.  He returned to Westmead be a staff specialist and Director of the Cardiac Catheter Laboratory in 1994.  He subsequently became a Visiting Medical Officer to Westmead, Westmead Private, Blacktown and Mt Druitt Hospitals from 2000 retiring from all hospital appointments in July 2022.  He continues to see outpatients for consultation at Westmead Private Cardiology.

Professor Liza Thomas

Cardiologist

Professor Liza Thomas is a Conjoint Professor at Sydney University and University of New South Wales and is Clinical Lead for non-invasive cardiac imaging at Westmead Hospital. She has particular interests in non-invasive cardiac imaging, infiltrative cardiomyopathies and cardiooncology. Her research focuses on echocardiography; specific interests include imaging for the assessment of atrial dynamics and function, diastolic function, chemotherapy induced cardiomyopathy, amyloid and Fabry cardiomyopathies and cardiac involvement in chronic kidney disease. She is the cardiovascular coordinator for the NSW Fabry and Amyloidosis groups. Professor Thomas is actively involved in undergraduate/postgraduate medical student and sonographer education. She supervises several PhD and Masters students. Liza has been invited to speak at numerous national and international meetings and has published more than 125 papers in peer-reviewed journals

Professor James Chong

Cardiologist

Associate Professor James Chong is a consultant and interventional cardiologist at Westmead Public and Private Hospitals. He is an Academic Cardiologist employed by the University of Sydney. In addition to his broad clinical interests James has a strong research interest in developing new cardiac therapies. He Co-directs the Centre for Heart Research at Westmead Institute for Medical Research where he also leads the Cardiac Regeneration Laboratory.

Dr Mikhail Altman

Cardiologist

Dr Mikhail Altman is a consultant cardiologist at Westmead Public and Private Hospitals. He holds an academic position at the University of Sydney, and is actively involved in post-graduate teaching. He has particular interests in non-invasive cardiac imaging, valvular heart disease and heart failure management.

Dr Preeti Choudhary

Cardiologist

Dr Preeti Choudhary is a consultant cardiologist at Westmead, Blacktown, Auburn and Westmead Private Hospitals. She completed her cardiology training at Westmead Hospital and PhD at the University of Sydney. She then completed a fellowship in adult congenital heart disease at The Heart Hospital and St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London and then a fellowship in cardiac MRI at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London before returning to Australia in 2017.  Dr Choudhary sees patients for consultation at Westmead Private Cardiology.

Dr Pierre Qian 

Cardiologist

Dr Pierre Qian is a consultant cardiologist at Westmead , Blacktown and Westmead Private Hospitals. He has particular interest in heart rhythm disorders, and performs cardiac catheter ablation and pacemaker and defibrillator implantations. He holds an academic faculty position at the University of Sydney and is active in innovation of new ablation techniques and technologies for the treatment of heart rhythm disorders and high blood pressure.

Dr Kasun De Silva

Cardiologist

Dr Kasun De Silva is a consultant cardiologist at Westmead Private Hospital and a current cardiac electrophysiology research and clinical fellow at Westmead Public Hospital. His practice encompasses all aspects of adult cardiology, including coronary artery disease, valvular heart disease, heart rhythm disorders, heart failure, cardiovascular imaging and preventative cardiology. He completed his undergraduate medical training at the University of New South Wales, graduating with distinction and first-class honours in 2014. He completed his Basic Physician and Cardiology Advanced training at Westmead Hospital in Sydney. He was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP) in 2022 and is currently a cardiac electrophysiology clinical and research fellow at Westmead Hospital as well as consultant cardiologist at Westmead Private Hospital. He has presented research at national and international conferences, published multiple research articles and won the national Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand Cardiovascular Prevention prize. He is currently a recipient of a prestigious National Health and Medical Research Council Postgraduate Research Scholarship to support his PhD candidature which is investigating novel technologies to diagnose and treat heart rhythm disorders that cause sudden cardiac death. He is fluent in English and Sinhalese.

Dr Sul Ki (Sally) Kim

Cardiologist

Dr Sul Ki (Sally) Kim is a general cardiologist. She completed her undergraduate science degree at University of Sydney majoring in mathematics and physiology, followed by postgraduate medical school at University of Sydney, including a year spent at School of Rural Health, Dubbo. She completed her basic medical and advanced cardiology training at Westmead Hospital. She is also currently undertaking a PhD studying stem cell derived heart muscle cells to try and repair injured hearts after a heart attack, under the supervision of Professor James Chong. In her spare time she enjoys swimming and spending time with her dog. She can also consult in Korean.

Anne-Marie Seve

Cardiac Nurse

My nursing career now spans almost 40 years (Oh wow!!). I trained and specialised in Cardiology at Westmead Public Hospital, with further ongoing study for my health science degree through The University of New England.

Having worked with many of our doctors previously in cardiac catheterisation in both the public and private hospitals, I have good grounding in cardiac intervention and treatment.

My greatest satisfaction and joys of this work is meeting our patients to help them with their ongoing review and treatments and of course having a good chat – many of our regulars will know that! I can talk while you walk very well !

I try to practice ‘what I preach’ spending lots of quality time in the great outdoors – hiking, kayaking and trying to control my 2 somewhat unruly and active dogs.

Please don’t be nervous when you see our treadmill! – I’m here to help you do your best and remember it’s a team approach, and that includes you.

Dohar Nainggolan

Cardiac Nurse

I graduated from Indonesia over 30 years ago and since then, I’ve worked and deepened my knowledge in cardiology. Cardiology is my first love and it’s true what they say, ‘the first love never dies.’ This love of cardiology flourished in 1993 when I completed a Cardiothoracic course at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney.

At Westmead Private Cardiology, coaching and motivating the patients to do their best and seeing them surprise themselves with their capabilities and achievements at the end of the procedure is so heartening. Learning from the patients’ experiences and gaining new insights is what makes this job so rewarding, not to mention the supportive and friendly environment where we are always looking after each other. I’m so grateful to be part of this amazing team.

Anita Boyd

Cardiac Sonographer

Anita Boyd is a senior clinical cardiac sonographer, with 15 years experience in echocardiography. Anita has a specific interest in atrial function, infiltrative cardiomyopathies, chemotherapy cardio toxicity, stress echocardiography and research. Anita completed a research PhD in 2012 and has authored and contributed to numerous research publications, with a focus on utilising both traditional and emerging echocardiographic measurement techniques to assess myocardial function in health and disease. She has presenting at international and local conferences, as well as supervising the clinical training of students.

Minh Chui

Cardiac Sonographer

Minh Chui is a cardiac sonographer specialising in paediatric, adult congenital and adult heart disease. She has worked in sonography for over 22 years working in Melbourne, London and Sydney. Her accreditations are in both adult and paediatric echocardiography including the DMU (cardiac), British Society of Echocardiography (BSE) and European Society of Cardiology in Congenital Heart Disease (ESC CHD). She works at Westmead Private Cardiology and at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead. 

Paul Stoodley

Cardiac Sonographer

Paul Stoodley has worked as a cardiac sonographer at Westmead Private Cardiology (WPC) since 2006. Research at WPC and the University of Sydney (2008 to 2013) led to his PhD. He has an active role in sonographer education. He is a senior lecturer in the School of Medicine and the coordinator of the cardiac sonography program at Western Sydney University (Graduate Diploma in Cardiac Sonography & Master of Cardiac Sonography).

Roopa Gordon

Cardiac Sonographer

Roopa Gordon commenced her training in 2016 at Wollongong and completed post graduate degree in Cardiac Sonography from Western Sydney University in 2019. While completing training, Roopa held a position at Bankstown Public Hospital. Roopa currently works at Westmead Private Cardiology and St George Public Hospital. She also has experience in ECG and Holter analysis. She has a keen interest in adult congenital heart disease.