Malissa Wood

Malissa J. Wood, MD, is co-director of the Corrigan Women's Heart Health Program at the Massachusetts General Hospital Heart Center and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Wood received her medical degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She completed both her Internal Medicine and Cardiology training at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston where she served as Chief Medical Resident. Dr. Wood is a clinical cardiologist and staff physician in the Cardiac Ultrasound Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Dr. Wood's clinical practice is primarily devoted to the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease in women. Dr. Wood currently serves as the Co-Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Heart Center Corrigan Women's Health Program and is the principal investigator of the Happy Heart Trial, a primary prevention in low income women study designed to improve the cardiovascular health of high risk women.

Dr. Wood has authored book chapters describing the cardiovascular response to pregnancy. Dr. Wood's clinical research with athletes included work with the US Olympic Committee, Harvard University athletes, marathon runners and rowers. Dr. Wood has published extensively in the area of cardiac adaptations to exercise. Dr. Wood is the Co- Principle Investigator in studies of microvascular ischemia and clinical and genetic features of individuals with spontaneous coronary artery dissection. She has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Echocardiography and is Past-President of the Boston Board of the American Heart Association and served on the writing committee for the American Board of Echocardiography Certification exam. Dr Wood received the Heart of Our Mission Award in 2008 and the Women's Health Award from the Massachusetts Medical Society in 2014, these awards were bestowed for her clinical and research efforts devoted to reducing heart disease in women.

Research

Dr. Wood was PI of an echocardiographic study, Echocardiographic Assessment of Changes in Left Ventricular Systolic and Diastolic Function with Prolonged Strenuous Exercise. It enrolled nearly 80 subjects and examined changes in systolic and diastolic function that occur after short and long distance strenuous exercise. Her team quantified serum biomarkers in athletes who ran in the 2004/2005 Boston Marathon, presented data nationally and published manuscripts in the European Heart Journal and Circulation in 2006.

She was also co-PI of the study, Echocardiographic Assessment of Changes in Left Ventricular Systolic and Diastolic Function in Elite Endurance Athletes, involving echocardiographic evaluation of Olympic speed skaters. It examined the effect of intense training and short duration, high-intensity exercise on systolic and diastolic left and right ventricular function. She helped develop the Harvard Athlete Initiative, a 3 year project involving electrocardiographic and echocardiographic screening of athletes.

She served as PI for the HAPPY Heart study, examining cardiovascular disease prevention in low income women with cardiovascular risk factors. Subjects in the study received an evaluation of risk factors, exercise ability and psychosocial factors. It includes echocardiography and carotid intimal-medial thickness measurement. This 2 year program lead to significant improvements in heart disease risk factors, stress and anxiety levels, Dr. Wood is the co-PI for the NIRVANA trial which examines the use of nevibool in symptom relief and exercise tolerance in microvascular ischemia. She is also co-PI of a prospective study examining clinical and genetic features in adults with a history of spontaneous coronary artery dissection.

Departments, Centers, & Programs:

• Heart Center
  • Cardiovascular Performance Program
  • Coronary Artery Disease Program
  • Corrigan Women's Heart Health Program
  • Echocardiography
  • General Clinical Cardiology
  • Heart Valve Program
  • Non-invasive Cardiology
• Cardiology

Clinical Interests:

• Cardiovascular disease in athletes
• Cardiovascular disease in women
• Cardiovascular disease prevention
• Echocardiography
• Spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD)
• Valvular heart disease

Medical Education

• MD, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine
• Residency, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
• Fellowship, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
• Fellowship, University of Texas Health Science Center

American Board Certifications

• Cardiovascular Disease, American Board of Internal Medicine