Karen James, MD

Karen James, MD, is a Staff Cardiologist, and a member of the transplantation team in the Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute at the Cleveland Clinic. She is also Director of the Heart Failure Cardio-Oncology clinic.  She is board-certified as a diplomat in internal medicine, cardiovascular disease and advanced heart failure and transplant medicine. Dr. James has a special interest in cardiac transplantation, left ventricular assist devices, congestive heart failure and heart failure in patients treated for cancer.

Dr. James completed her undergraduate degree at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania, graduating summa cum laude. She received her medical degree from Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia. She did her clinical training in internal medicine at Cleveland Clinic, then fellowships in peripheral vascular disease and cardiology. She was appointed to Cleveland Clinic in 1991.

Dr. James is Associate Professor of Medicine in the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. She is principal investigator or co-investigator in many clinical trials focusing on heart failure therapies, transplant arteriosclerosis and heart failure physiology in LVAD patients, to name but a few of her many research efforts.

She is widely published in leading medical journals such as Circulation, American Heart Journal, American Journal of Cardiology and Transplantation on topics related to her specialty interests. She has written a number of chapters in medical textbooks, among them “Heart Disease arising from Pregnancy” and “Inflammatory Cardiomyopathy."  

She is a reviewer of abstracts for publications that include Circulation Heart Failure, Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine, Journal of Cardiac Failure and Arthritis and Rheumatism. She has presented the results of her research and clinical experience at national and international conferences and symposia and published numerous abstracts on her specialty interests.

Dr. James is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology (FACC) and a member of the International Society of Heart Transplantation and of the Clinical Council of the American Heart Association.