In memory of Dr Mark Lanzieri

Dr Mark Lanzieri obtained his Doctor of Medicine degree from St George’s University in 1985.

He subsequently completed his residency in Internal Medicine at St Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury, Connecticut, following which he did a fellowship in Cardiology at Norwalk Hospital/Yale University. He further went on to do a fellowship in interventional cardiology at Tufts Medical Centre.

Dr Lanzieri practiced at the Central Maine Heart & Vascular Institute (he was also a founding member), and was also affiliated with Central Maine Medical Centre in the United States.

Dr Lanzieri was one of the founding members of the SGU/Ministry of Health Visiting Cardiology Programme, which operates from the Medical Specialties Clinic, Grand Anse, St George. The administration and funding of the Cardiology Clinic is done by St George’s University and a cardiologist is provided for one week every month on a rotating basis. The services provided includes consultation, Echocardiograms, Holter Monitoring, Exercise Stress Tests and pacemaker interrogation at no cost to Grenadians. The visiting cardiologist also does a hospital round for one day each month and procedures such as bedside echocardiograms, pacemaker implantations and teaching of the house staff and medical students.

Even while in the US, he was always readily available to the Internal Medicine team at the hospital, for consultation on patients. Dr Lanzieri had been providing Cardiology services to Grenada through the Visiting Cardiology Programme from 1999 and had been faithfully coming to Grenada for the last 21 years. He started the interventional cardiology programme at the St George’s General Hospital, Grenada, in 2015.

To date, Dr Lanzieri and his team have completed the care of many coronary cases at the General Hospital, many of whom could not afford travel overseas for same. He visited 3 times a year with a rotating team of highly trained individuals and did pacemaker insertions, cardiac catheterisation and ICD (Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator) implantation.

Dr Lanzieri had also personally assisted many Grenadians in obtaining Cardiac procedures in the US, pro bono. His contribution to Grenada was born out of a love for Grenada and its people and he has touched and impacted the lives of many Grenadians. His pleasant personality made him very easy to work with and he genuinely cared for every patient with whom he came into contact.

Dr Lanzieri died on 9 August at the age of 60, in the US.

GIS