 Medicine and breakthrough innovation are a family tradition and have been for generations in the Rizavi home. Welcome to the heart beat, I'm Maya Pomroy. Dr. Rizavi came to THI in 2013, following his training at the Mayo Clinic. Born in Massachusetts, Dr. Rizavi moved to his parents' home country of Iran when he was in fourth grade. He enrolled as an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland, and then it was off to medical school at the Medical College of Pennsylvania. Dr. Rizavi's father had a plan for his son to follow in his footsteps. Well, my dad was a physician and he knew nothing except being a physician, and it was one of those things that was always assumed and stated that I would be a physician. I did have a period where I was trying to, you know, kind of find my own way and be a writer and, you know, go into philosophy and stuff like that, but my dad kind of at that point said, you know, that's fine, but, you know, you're gonna pay for your college on your own if you do that. He was old school, he didn't mess around. Dr. Rizavi also credits his mentors and professors for guiding him to his life's passion, electrophysiology, and improving the quality of patient care. One mentor in particular, Dr. Chris Bonnet, captured Dr. Rizavi's imagination. He would explain these circuits with like move Parkinson wide and how the normal cardiac circuit occurs and then what happens if the circuit is off and how that can manifest itself? And it was just so elegant. It's just so beautiful how it all falls together like a beautiful puzzle. I was smitten. And so I was like, I wanna be an electrophysiologist, so I had to work myself backwards. So I knew I had to do cardiology and to do cardiology, I had to do medicine. So that was the plan. Dr. Joanna Molina Rizavi, Dr. Rizavi's wife has some medical chops of her own. She is the first immigrant woman to graduate from THI's cardiology fellowship training program. She also holds the honor of being the first Hispanic woman to pursue an additional cardiac electrophysiology subspecialty program at THI. When Joanna met Maddie, she found not only a partner for life, but also someone who shares her passion for matters of the heart. The two share a son who may very well one day follow in his parents and grandfather's footsteps. If he wants to be a doctor, if not, I mean, we'll do whatever he wants to do. We're not no pressure, but I am proud to say that he has a father that is dictating what the future of our field at least is and he gets to see that and he gets to learn from his dad. It's just beautiful. And his mom. And his mom, of course. We'll see you next time on The Heartbeat.