Guidance for ‘Safe Exercise’ in the COVID-era & How to prepare for a return to sport

Sanjay Sharma is Professor of cardiology and head of research for the clinical academic group at St George’s University of London and St George’s NHS Foundation trust.  His research interests include sudden cardiac death in the young, heart muscle disease and cardiovascular adaptation in athletes for which he has developed an international reputation culminating in over 240 PubMed citations and authorship of numerous textbooks. He regularly lectures at major scientific meetings and is considered a world leader in his field.

Professor Sharma leads a large tertiary inherited cardiac diseases programme serving South East England to manage young patients with cardiomyopathy and ion channel diseases. He is the director for the largest sports cardiology unit in the UK which is responsible for athletes with potentially serious cardiac diseases including amateurs but also professionals from a number of sporting organizations including the English Football Association, rugby league, Lawn Tennis Association, English Institute of Sport, Team GB Rowing and Team Sky cycling. He is the medical director of the London marathon and has been commended for providing one of the best medical services for endurance events in the world. Professor Sharma is also the chairman of the expert cardiology consensus panel for the English Football Association and for the 2012 London Olympics, he was appointed lead cardiologist. Until recently, he was chairman of the ESC sports cardiology nucleus and congress programme committee member of the European Society of Cardiology and the European Association of Preventive Cardiology.

Working with the charitable organisation, Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) for the past 20 years, Professor Sharma leads the largest cardiac screening programme in the UK for individuals aged 14-35 years old. The charity screens over 20,000 individuals each year from which several data sets have been developed to provide an estimate of the number of young individuals dying suddenly from unsuspected heart disease and offer strategies to prevent such tragedies. His role in promoting the detection of cardiac disease in the young has been recognised within the British government where he gives an annual address at the CRY Parliamentary Meeting.

Professor Sharma leads a large research group based at St.George’s, University of London and the publications generated from his expertise have helped further our understanding of the athlete’s heart on a global scale. Not only has he contributed to European scientific position statements and recommendations for sporting participation in athletes with cardiac disease, but he was lead author of the international recommendations for the interpretation of the athlete’s ECG that were co-published in EHJ and JACC in 2017. His reputation as a world-renowned leader in this subject has most recently been highlighted by reporting the outcomes of screening adolescent athletes in NEJM, which has helped shape screening policies of sporting organizations in the UK and beyond.