HEARTS Course Team

Dr. Jesse McLaren

HEARTS Approach Developer

Course Co-founder

Lead Facilitator

Dr. Jesse McLaren is an emergency physician and Associate Professor at the University of Toronto. He is passionate about ECG education and quality improvement, and the paradigm shift from STEMI to Occlusion MI. He has written the ECG Cases blog for Emergency Medicine Cases since 2019 and has been an associate editor of Dr. Smith’s ECG Blog since 2022. He tweets @ECGcases.

Dr. Mazen El-Baba

Course Co-founder

Lead Facilitator

Dr. Mazen El-Baba is an emergency medicine resident physician and an avid ECG enthusiast. He is passionate about making ECG learning an enjoyable experience for all learners. He believes that the HEARTS approach to ECG interpretation should be the standard in medical education. To that effect, he has worked on developing a standardized ECG teaching in medical school curricula and residency programs. He has multiple ECG-related publications in education and quality improvement.

Dr. Anton Helman

Educational Consultant

Dr. Anton Helman is an Emergency Physician at North York General in Toronto. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, Division of Emergency Medicine and the Education Innovation Lead at the Schwartz-Reisman Emergency Medicine Institute. He is the founder, host and chief editor of Emergency Medicine Cases.

Select Publications

Sivashanmugathas V, El-Baba M, Jones MK, Kiss A, Meyers HP, Smith SW, Chartier LB, McLaren JTT. Equity gaps in the diagnosis and treatment of Occlusion Myocardial Infarction. CJC Open 2025 May;7(5):632-640
McLaren J, Alencar J, Aslanger E,Meyers HP, Smith SW. From ST-Elevation MI to Occlusion MI: the new paradigm shift in Acute Myocardial Infarction. JACC Advances, November 2024,3(11):101314
El-Baba M, McLaren JTT, & Argintaru, N. (2023). The HEARTS ECG workshop: a novel approach to resident and student ECG education. International Journal of Emergency Medicine, 16(1), 81.
McLaren JTT, Meyers HP, Smith SW, Chartier LB. Emergency department Code STEMI patients with initial ECG labeled ‘normal’ by computer interpretation: a 7-year retrospective review. Acad Emerg Med 2023 Aug 24
McLaren JTT, El-Baba M, Sivashanmugathas V, Meyers HP, Smith SW, Chartier LB. Missing occlusions: quality gaps for ED patients with Occlusion MI. Am J Emerg Med 2023 Aug 15
McLaren JTT, Meyers HP, Smith S. Chest pain, paced rhythm, and two missed indications for emergent reperfusion. JAMA Int Med 2023 April 3
McLaren JTT, Meyers HP, Smith S, Chartier L. From STEMI to Occlusion MI: paradigm shift and ED quality improvement. CJEM 2021 Dec 30;24:250-255
McLaren JTT, Taher A, Kapoor M, Yi S, Chartier L. Sharing and Teaching ECGs to Minimize Infarction (STEMI): reducing diagnostic time for acute coronary occlusion in the emergency department. American Journal of Emergency Medicine 2021 Oct, 45:18-32