Annapoorna Kini, MD, MRCP is an endowed Zena and Michael A Wiener Professor of Medicine, Director of Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at The Mount Sinai Medical Center, Program Director of Interventional Cardiology Fellowship and Director of Structural Heart Intervention Program. Dr. Kini is an international leader in the field of percutaneous coronary intervention and heart valve therapy.

Dr. Kini is internationally acclaimed for her special expertise in performing complex and high-risk interventional cases, especially in chronic total occlusion, calcific and bifurcation lesions. She has extensive experience with the techniques of mitral, aortic balloon valvuloplasty, and septal (alcohol) ablation for the treatment of obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. She has been among the first interventional cardiologists in the country to use the transcutaneous aortic valve implantation procedure in the treatment of patients with aortic stenosis and performs MitralClip procedures for patients with mitral regurgitation.

Dr. Kini performs over 1,000 coronary interventions annually, the highest number by a female interventionist in the United States, with an extremely low complication rate of less than 0.3 percent; an official report from The Department of Health recognized Dr. Kini as the safest operator among 350 other physicians in the state of New York numerous times (2004-2006; 2005-2007; 2009-2011; 2010-2012; 2011-2013; 2012-2014; 2013-2015; 2014-2016).

She is the recipient of the 2011 Dean's Award for Excellence in Clinical Medicine at The Mount Sinai Medical Center. She also received the Physician of the Year award in 2014 by the Mount Sinai Hospital nurses. She received the Excellence in Medicine Award from the National Association of Physicians of India (AAPI) in July 2016. She received the prestigious, Ellis Island Medal of Honor in May 2017, which is the highest award given to any immigrant civilian. She is the recipient of AHA “The Heart of Gold Award”, June 2018, and Jacobi Medallion Award 2019 for Breakthroughs in Clinical Care.

Dr. Kini is a keen researcher, particularly recognized for her studies pertaining to intracoronary imaging studies including IVUS, NIRS, and OCT, and trials such as YELLOW and ORBID have made major headlines. She has published more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific publications, and book chapters in major cardiology textbooks. Dr. Kini has been the principal or co-investigator in numerous randomized clinical trials. She has been on the editorial boards and reviews for prestigious journals in the field of cardiovascular interventions. The most recent YELLOW II study was an ambitious translational combination of multi-modality imaging with clinically relevant cellular biology and comprehensive transcriptomics. She is a member of the Royal College of Physicians of London and a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology.

She has been most recently leading the development of iPhone/Android Apps to help in many areas of complex interventional cardiology procedures: (1) the BifurcAID on treatment coronary bifurcation lesions utilizing systematic decision-making algorithms (2) the OCTAID on how to perform and interpret optical cohesion tomography imaging during coronary interventions (3) the TranseptAID on how to safely transverse the interatrial septum (4) the TAVRCathAID on how to efficiently perform coronary angiography through the struts of TAVR valve frames and (5) CalcificAID, an educational tool for the treatment of calcific lesions. These Apps are developed in collaboration with her fellows and the Mount Sinai App-lab and available for free download at the iTunes or Google Play Stores. They already have more than 28,000 downloads worldwide. Since the Apps are spreading exponentially, they exemplify her ability to modify teaching methods to adapt them to contemporary trends of her trainees.

Dr. Kini is an excellent teacher and is dedicated to the teaching of both cardiology and interventional fellows. Due to her passion for teaching, the graduating interventional fellows Batch of 2013 who were trained under her mentorship in the Interventional Cardiology Fellowship Program created a teaching award in her name “The Annapoorna S. Kini Fellows Choice Award” for excellence in teaching. She has received this award every year since its inception. Dr. Kini was selected by the American College of Cardiology to receive the 2020 Gifted Educator Award in recognition of her innovative, outstanding teaching characteristics, and compassionate qualities.

Her achievements are not only limited to serving as the Director of the Annual Live Symposium of Complex Coronary & Vascular Cases at The Mount Sinai Medical Center, one of the most attended and respected meetings in the field of interventional cardiology in the country, but as also being the Director of monthly web conferences on Live Complex Coronary Intervention Cases. Dr. Kini plays a key role in educating internationalists globally in the technical aspects of complex coronary interventions via monthly webcasts on www.ccclivecases.org and www.structuralheartlivecases.org with a worldwide audience of several thousand physicians over 137 countries.

Pass by Dr. Kini’s lab any day of the week, any hour of the day, and you will hear the unison applause that erupts from the whole team when a difficult complex intervention is completed. Moreover to protocols, which have been disseminated to many centers in the U.S. to guide other centers, getting the result similar to ours. The ultimate mission of these endeavors is to provide the best care to interventional cardiac patients and to strive to make Mount Sinai Cardiology #1 in the United States.

Awards and recognition

• First place in Internal Medicine, Ophthalmology and Anatomy, Mangalore University, 1989.
• Gold medal for best outgoing student in the Final MBBS class of 1990.
• Young Investigator Award of American Association of Cardiologists of Indian Origin (AACIO), New Orleans, LA, 1999.
• Lowest risk-adjusted mortality rate for angioplasty in New York State, 2004-2006.
  Lowest risk-adjusted mortality rate for angioplasty in New York State, 2005-2007.
  Lowest risk-adjusted mortality rate for angioplasty in New York State, 2009-2011.
  Lowest risk-adjusted mortality rate for angioplasty in New York State, 2010-2012.
  Lowest risk-adjusted mortality rate for angioplasty in New York State, 2011-2013.
  Lowest risk-adjusted mortality rate for angioplasty in New York State, 2012-2014.
  Lowest risk-adjusted mortality rate for angioplasty in New York State, 2013-2015.
  Lowest risk-adjusted mortality rate for angioplasty in New York State, 2014-2016.
• “Rock Star of Science” award from AHA, New York, 2011
• “Dean's Award for Excellence in Clinical Medicine”. Mount Sinai Hospital, May 12, 2011
• “The Annapoorna S. Kini Fellows’ Choice Award”, a teaching award created by Mount Sinai interventional fellows, 2012-2018.
• "The Physician of the Year". Nurses association, Mount Sinai Hospital, 2014
• New York Magazine’s list of New York’s Best doctors, 2015-2019
• New York Times Magazine’s list of Super Doctors, 2009-2019
• America’s Top Physicians list by Castle Connley, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
• American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), 2016
• Endowed Zena and Michael A. Wiener Professor of Medicine, 2016.
• AMA-WPS Inspirational Physician Award, 2016
• "Ellis Island Medal of Honor", May 2017
• "Bharat Gaurav", June 2017
• Shree Vidyadhiraj Award, April 2018
• AHA “The Heart of Gold Award”, June 2018
• 2019 Jacobi Medallion Awardee for Breakthroughs in Clinical Care – The Jacobi Medallion is one of the highest honors that Mount Sinai bestows. The winners of this prestigious award exemplify Mount Sinai’s commitment to compassionate care and to the advancement of medicine – March 2019
• ACC 2020 Gifted Educator Award