Professor Martin Stiles on fixing heartbeats
Professor Martin Stiles, cardiologist at Waikato Hospital.
Photo:
Tamlyn Nair
Martin Stiles is the man credited with fixing the heart rhythms of some of our great Olympians.
He's now been made a full Professor at the University of Auckland - the first Professor of Medicine at Waikato Hospital which is a training ground for young doctors from Auckland.
Martin did his medical training at Otago University in the 90s and soon specialised in cardiology, completing a PhD on electrophysiology in Adelaide in 2009.
After his work researching the electric signals in the heart that govern its rhythm, he convinced Waikato Hospital to purchase equipment used for an operation known as cardiac ablation.
This is an operation done to fix irregular heartbeats - often found in elite endurance sportspeople.
Those athletes include Olympic gold medal winners Rob Waddell and - more recently Alicia Hoskins who took two golds at last year's Olympics in the canoe with Dame Lisa Carrington.
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