My name is Yaroslav Shpak, M.D.  I am the founder and the principal author of this blog.  My entire career has been dedicated to cardiology. 
I was born in family of doctors in Kiev, USSR, in 1975.

In spring of 1991 I went to Colombo, Sri Lanka, where my father served as a staff physician at the Soviet Embassy.  After USSR’s collapse, myself and my family returned to our native Kiev.  There was no USSR anymore. There was a new country - Ukraine.
 
I received my medical degree from National Medical University in Kiev in 1998 and since then, I have been working in several medical institutions in Kiev.  I am married, and I have two children. 
 
On my last job, I have been working in Kiev Regional Cardiac Clinic since 2010.  It is the main cardiology clinic in the entire Kiev region.  Population that this clinic serves is approaching to two millions.  We treat the most severe cardiac patients from our area.  The most difficult cardiac cases from the entire region are inevitably seen by us. 

In my university years I noticed an almost mystical ability of old-school physicians to make correct diagnoses in difficult cases without any sophisticated equipment.  It seemed to me very intriguing, and at that time I began exploring literature dealing with physical diagnosis and studied this topic extensively.  Through the years, I examined a lot of cardiac patients on almost a daily basis.  So, I could perfected my knowledge on every single one of them.  
I tried to diagnose patients as accurately as possible by myself without any sophisticated diagnostic machinery.  I used technology primarily for verification of my hypotheses.  Finally, I achieved an ability to diagnose correctly in most cases by using only my stethoscope, manometer and ECG.  Now, my colleagues sometimes trust my opinion more than echocardiography's report.  Just sometimes :-)

Trough publications in this blog, I want to organize my experience and to share my knowledge with everyone who wants to gain or improve their skills of physical diagnosis in cardiology.  Nowadays, it is almost impossible to make a significant discovery in the field of heart auscultation.  But my aim is to make the study of this complex skill easy and fun.

I am not the only author of this blog. This blog and many other of my publications could not have appeared without significant support of my old friend.  His name is Igor Kolesnikov.  He is a co-author in many of my publications.   Let him say something about himself. 

Sincerely,

Yaroslav V Shpak, MD.

My name is Igor Kolesnikov.
Born and raised in Kiev USSR (now Ukraine).  Moved to United States in 1994.  Started medical career in pharmacy in 1999 after receiving Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Midwestern University (Downers Grove, Illinois).  Was not entirely satisfied with my career perspectives and after only two years working as a pharmacist decided to pursue physician’s career.  Went to Rush University Medical School (Chicago, Illinois) while continuing working as a pharmacist.  Received medical degree in 2006, and after 1 year internship in internal medicine (St. Francis Hospital, Evanston, Illinois) returned to Rush for anesthesiology residency which successfully completed in 2010.
Now, I serve as an attending physician and chief of ENT anesthesia section in the department of anesthesiology and pain management at John Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County (Chicago, Illinois) and as an assistant professor of anesthesiology at Rush Medical College.  My principal interests are: cardiothoracic anesthesia, difficult airway management and peripheral nerve blocks. 
I am married and have two kids.

Sincerely,
Igor V Kolesnikov MD., PharmD.