Introduction to the Seventeenth Symposium on Cardiac Arrhythmias: Words in Honor of Dr. Ali Massumi

My name is Mehran Massumi and I am the son of Ali Massumi, the man who started this electrophysiology conference 17 years ago.

Ali Massumi was born on 15 January 1945 in the town of Nain, Iran. In 1971, he graduated at the top of his class from the University of Tehran, where he met his wife (eventually to become my mother), Vida. Upon completion of his medical training, the couple moved to Buffalo, New York, where my father completed his internal medicine residency at Millard Fillmore Hospital. Next, with my older brother in tow, my parents moved to Houston, where my father pursued his fellowship in Cardiovascular Diseases at the Texas Heart Institute. He graduated from his fellowship in 1979 and joined the prestigious Hall-Garcia Cardiology Associates, where he remained a partner during the entire course of his medical career.

Throughout his professional life, my father received many accolades and was widely considered one of the best clinical electrophysiologists in this field. He was routinely named amongst the best cardiologists by local, state, and national media outlets; and he was the personal physician to many members of the Royal Family of Oman.

But it wasn't the awards or praise that drove him to be great. He was a teacher, who loved nothing more than to teach. When he gained a full professorship at the Baylor College of Medicine, he was the youngest physician at the time to do so. Loved by the fellows whom he helped to train, he won so many “Attending of the Year” awards that a moratorium was placed on his winning, in order to give other physicians a chance. He trained more than 180 cardiologists and more than 30 electrophysiologists, many of whom are sitting here today.

My father passed away on 13 March 2015, just 3 weeks after last year's conference. Despite failing health and generalized weakness from lymphoma, he still mustered the energy to attend the event, a testament to how much he cared about continuing education in the field of cardiac electrophysiology.

Although we all wish he were here today to open this year's meeting, I am positive that he is looking down on us from above and could not be happier that his memory and his conference live on. I know that this conference is in the very capable hands of his partners, Drs. Mohammad Saeed, Abdi Rasekh, and Mehdi Razavi, 3 colleagues whom he very much admired and respected.

On behalf of myself, my family, and my father's colleagues at St. Luke's Hospital and the Texas Heart Institute, I want to thank all of you for your attendance at this symposium that meant so much to him.