Nils P. Johnson, MD, MS

Biography

Dr. Nils Johnson grew up equally in Edmonton, Houston, and Tulsa (his father was in the oil industry), becoming an Eagle Scout and violin member of the all-state orchestra in high school before spending an exchange year in Witzenhausen, Germany. He completed his undergraduate degree in physics and computing at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver; medical school at Columbia University in Manhattan; and internal medicine residency, cardiology fellowship, and interventional cardiology fellowship at Northwestern University in Chicago, where he also earned a Master of Science degree in epidemiology and biostatistics. During 2015-16 he spent an academic sabbatical year emphasizing invasive coronary physiology with Dr. Nico Pijls at the Catharina Hospital in Eindhoven, Netherlands.

His research with mentor Dr. K. Lance Gould started in 1999 and focuses on clinical coronary physiology, from non-invasive perfusion imaging to intracoronary hemodynamics. Dr. Johnson served as the principal investigator for international trials in coronary physiology like CONTRAST (NCT02184117) and DEFINE-FLOW (NCT02328820). Current projects include quantitative FFR pullbacks (PPG registry, NCT04789317) and novel aortic valve physiology (SAVI-AoS, NCT04514250). He has lectured in 19 countries across 4 continents and contributed to over 140 publications. Dr. Johnson is a full Professor of Medicine and holds the Weatherhead Distinguished Chair of Heart Disease.

Clinically Dr. Johnson cares for patients in the cardiac care unit and hospital wards, practices interventional cardiology in the catheterization laboratory, interprets SPECT and PET perfusion images, and sees outpatients in clinic. His clinical interests span all of cardiology with a special focus on using pressure and flow measurements to clarify the diagnosis and select optimal treatment.

Dr. Johnson is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in Cardiovascular Disease and Interventional Cardiology, plus subspecialty credentials in Nuclear Cardiology.

Areas of interest: Dr. Johnson seeks to improve patient care by applying clinical physiology, both non-invasive perfusion imaging and invasive pressure measurements.