Meet Genetic Cardiologist Dr. Sharlene Day

Sharlene M. Day, MD, is a genetic cardiologist at Penn’s Center for Inherited Cardiac Disease. She also serves as director of translational research for the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and the Penn Cardiovascular Institute. Dr. Day specializes in inherited heart conditions, including hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and genetic arrhythmia conditions. She also sees athletes with suspected or confirmed heart problems, and employs a shared decision-making approach for sports participation in athletes with genetic heart disease. “Patients who get diagnosed with genetic heart diseases are often very scared. There's a lot of misinformation,” says Dr. Day. “And I think one of the most gratifying things that I can do is to educate them about their condition, to provide reassurance and to offer the best possible treatments that we have to offer at this time. And to provide them hope that we're making advances, that their children are going to be better off than they are.”