Dr. Themistocles (Tim) Assimes, MD PhD, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Stanford University in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine.  Tim grew up in Montreal, Canada, where he received his medical degree from McGill University in 1994.   He then pursued training in surgery for nearly two years before switching into internal medicine.   He completed his residency in internal medicine as well as a masters degree in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McGill before moving to Stanford University in 2001 to pursue fellowship training in cardiology.  During his fellowship and initial faculty years at Stanford University, he also completed a PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics.  Dr. Assimes currently devotes a majority of his time performing advanced population based research on the genetic causes of heart attacks and the common conditions that predispose people to heart attacks including high cholesterol, smoking, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, and insulin resistance.  Concurrently, he teaches general cardiology as well as echocardiography to medical students, residents, and cardiology fellows-in-training at the Stanford affiliated Palo Alto VA hospital.