ABC Board Member
John Fontaine, MD, FACC

Dr. Fontaine is Professor of Medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine and Director of the Arrhythmia Services. He recently attained an M.B.A. in the specialty of Healthcare management. He served on the Clinical Trials Review Committee and the Electrical Signaling and Ion transport and Arrhythmia study section at the NIH; and also holds ad hoc positions on editorial board of several journals and is a manuscript reviewer for several peer-review journals.

Among his professional interests are cardiac resynchronization therapy, risk stratification of patients for sudden cardiac arrest and the evaluation and management of patients with syncope. The study of sudden death in athletes has always been of prime interest from the time Dr. Fontaine was an assistant to Dr. Lon Castle, the former team physician for the Cleveland Browns and Cavaliers. He is a life-time member of the Association of Black Cardiologists, Inc. for many years and has served three non-consecutive terms on the board of directors. He is also Chairman of the bylaws committee for the organization. He serves as advisor and mentor to medical students and students at many levels of education.

Dr. Fontaine is originally from New York and received his MD degree from Rutgers Medical School, also previously named, Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine in Piscataway, New Jersey. He completed his residency at Nassau County Medical Center. Dr. Fontaine subsequently received his cardiovascular medicine and electrophysiology fellowship training at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio. He is board certified in internal medicine, cardiovascular medicine and clinical cardiac electrophysiology. He is proficient in performing radio frequency energy ablation, device implantation, and the management of complex cardiac arrhythmias.

He has published numerous articles and abstracts on risk-stratification for ventricular tachycardia, tilt table testing, T-wave alternans assessment of risk for sudden cardiac arrest, device system extraction, syncope and arrhythmia management. He has also done work involving risk stratification utilizing the signal-averaged ECG for which he has published several articles. He has recently published an important manuscript entitled “Biventricular Paced QRS Morphology Predictors of LV Lead Location in Relation to Mortality in Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy”, as well as a recent manuscript which for the first time documented asymptomatic sinus bradycardia as a sequella to bariatric surgery. He is a member the Heart Rhythm Society, Sudden Cardiac Arrest Thought Leadership Alliance Group a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, Fellow Heart Rhythm Society, inductee into the Beta Gamma Sigma international business honor society (Summa Cum Laude), and served two terms on the board of directors for the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Heart Association.

He has made several appearances on radio and television programs for the purpose of educating and raising awareness of cardiovascular diseases and the effects on all populations, particularly the African-American population and other minorities. He has been keenly aware of the disparity in outcomes for minority populations who suffer disproportionately from cardiovascular diseases and the issue of sudden death in athletes and seeks to assist in helping to resolve these issues through his commitment to research, teaching and patient care.