I am Tiberio Frisoli, MD, Interventional Cardiologist with specialized training in minimally invasive interventions for heart valve (i.e. Aortic Stenosis, Mitral Regurgitation) and artery (i.e. Coronary Artery Disease, Peripheral artery disease) problems. I practice at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, MI, in the Center for Structural Heart Disease, where I am Associate Medical Director of Structural Heart for the Health System, and also at Henry Ford Allegiance in Jackson, MI, where I am the Medical Director of Structural Heart Disease and have helped develop a TAVR program: GoLIVE, DBusiness, Crain’s.

This is some of the recent work I have contributed and press I have received: TCT MD, HFHS release, Healio,  1000th Henry Ford TAVR, Heart Health on Detroit Public Radio, 102 year old WW2 Vet TAVR; along with some of my research publications,  in my field of work. I have the privilege of working with and learning from a team that performs some of the most innovative heart procedures in the world.

More importantly I am a proud member of a great family, in the US thanks to the courage and vision of my Nonno Tiberio who in 1954 left wife and 3 sons to cross the Atlantic on the famous SS Andrea Doria, from Naples, Italy to Ellis Island, NY. Remarkably, he fought on the Denieper River on the Russian front and was one of few Italians in his troop who made it back to his homeland..on foot..in the middle of the frigid Russian winter. Books have been written about his battalion. The courage and fortitude therein demonstrated served him well when, alone, he came to NJ in the US and built a construction company. Within 3 years he had earned enough to bring his wife, Maria, and 3 sons Gaetano (my father), Saverio, and Tonino to NJ from their small town of Bovino, in the region of Puglia in Southeastern Italy. My Nonna Maria was a Saint; or so she should be. Humility, compassion, selflessness, thoughtfulness personified. And boy could she cook. Her meals brought people together, family — friends — even strangers were invited in the house! The traditional recipes she knew by memory and gestalt, never using a measuring cup: “agnello al cutturiello”, “cavatelli fatti a mano con pomodoro”, “orecchiette con broccoli e salsiccia”, “la genovese”, and for Christmas Eve: baccala’ and “pettole”, or for Easter “il Benedetto” antipasto and “lo spezzatino”.

My father, age 13 when he first arrived in the US, brought with him a sense of tradition, citizenship, work ethic, accountability. He learned English, worked with my grandfather as a stone mason on weekends, and worked his way through high school, college, medical school (back to Italy, in Rome), and ultimately residency and fellowship (Boston), after which he has had a thriving practice as a maternal fetal medicine physician (high risk Ob/Gyn), caring for women with high-risk pregnancies, with skill and compassion. My mother is a most elegant lady with a remarkable eye for fashion and interior design, a phenomenal cook, a strong matriarch. She left her studies in Biology at the University of Siena in Tuscany when she met my father (a story worthy of a romantic Hollywood movie) and moved to this country where she learned English and became a strong foundation for a family of 4 men. She is the enthusiasm, style, and strength of the family.

Thanks to them, I speak the Italian language, retain a strong sense of tradition and cultural identity. More importantly, they instilled in me and in my brothers a strong sense of civic responsibility, of honesty and integrity, of humility, and of work ethic. I travel back to Italy yearly to see family and friends and participate in local traditions.

I was very active with competitive soccer and tennis during high school and college years and was also involved in theater as an actor and in speech and debate. Hobbies include wine making (a yearly family tradition).