Dr. Tara Sedlak
Cardiologist · Medical Director, Leslie Diamond Women's Heart Health Clinic, Vancouver General Hospital · Clinical Associate Professor, UBC
Canada's first certified women's heart health cardiologist, Dr. Sedlak studies the conditions standard tests miss: heart attacks without blocked arteries, disease of the heart's smallest vessels, spasm of the heart arteries and spontaneous coronary artery dissection — a small tear in the artery wall that is often overlooked.
What the research does
- Uses advanced imaging to find the tears, clots, and microvascular damage behind heart attacks women were told didn't happen
- Maps how women's symptoms differ — jaw, back, and shoulder pain, nausea, sudden fatigue — so they aren't triaged as anxiety or reflux
- Builds risk screening around women's own histories: pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, early menopause, autoimmune disease
Dr. Sedlak also engages in advocacy as part of the Canadian Women's Heart Health Alliance, working to correct a research record in which more than two-thirds of heart and stroke studies enrolled only men.