Honoring our Heart and Vascular team veterans

This Veterans Day, we salute the remarkable clinicians with Emory Heart & Vascular who have served our nation, embodying the true spirit of sacrifice and resilience in everything that they do. The work they have contributed both on the front lines and in the hospital reflects the selflessness and strength that defines our nation's veterans. Their time in the military impressed on them the core values of courage, sacrifice, and the unwavering commitment to helping others

Meet the members of the Emory Heart & Vascular team who have worn the uniform and continue to make a difference in the lives of others, combining their military experience with a deep commitment to patient care.

Raised in the ranks

Dimitri Cassimatis, MD,is the Martha West Looney Chief of Medicine at Emory University Hospital Midtown (EUHM), general cardiologist in the Division of Cardiology with outpatient, inpatient and echo reading time at EUHM. He grew up in a military family, where his father was drafted for Vietnam and spent his entire career in the U.S. Army as a physician.As a child, Cassimatis lived in Virginia, Maryland, Berlin, and then Frankfurt, Germany. The experiences he had growing up showed him that time in the Army was an opportunity. Cassimatis was in the U.S. Army from 1999-2011, spending time in Washington D.C., Landstuhl, Germany (Ramstein Air Base), and Baghdad, Iraq, during his 2007, eight-month deployment with the Cavalry Regiment in the 10^th Mountain Division. After reaching the rank of Major, he left with an honorable discharge to pursue a career in academic medicine with Emory University.

Cassimatis says "I treasured the way the military was in many ways a very large family - and how we all watched out for each other. The military is also where I learned the tremendous value of showing everyone respect for their role - and how we all truly need each other."

Securing a better future

Commander David Rhoiney, DO, is a vascular surgery fellow who is still active duty today. After first enlisting in 2002 at the age of 17, five years later he would become a 2007 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a U.S. Navy Commander/O5 in the Medical Corps. Rhoiney joined the military to make a better life for himself and take care of his family. "My sense of purpose and resolve was cemented once I watched the events of 9/11 happen live on TV," he says.

Rhoiney was an Information Warfare Officer (Cryptologist) in the Navy before turning his focus to medicine in 2010. Before joining Emory as a vascular surgery fellow in 2023, he progressed from general surgeon to then becoming head of department within general surgery and Chief Medical Informatics Officer (CMIO) at the U.S. Naval Hospital Guantanamo Bay.

"The military taught me to hold myself to a standard that exceeds that of normal. It taught me that I could work harder than my body would initially allow me. I learned that you could accomplish anything with little daily incremental improvements," says Rhoiney.

Honor, valor and a new mission

Alexander Halkos, MD, is an assistant professor of cardiology at Emory. Halkos was drafted into Army in 1965 and sent to Vietnam, serving in Ia Drang Valley and Khe Sahn from 1965-66. He was awarded the bronze star for valor during combat for a helicopter rescue mission for trapped American soldiers in combat. Upon discharge, he was a captain in the 7^th Cavalry Regiment of the 1^st Air Cavalry Division.

When he returned from Vietnam, he was deeply affected by what he saw and experienced. Prior to serving, he had completed an internal medicine residency, but was unsure what he would do upon returning. He remembers being at Grady Memorial Hospital in an elevator when he met Willis Hurst, MD. Hurst offered him a cardiology fellowship, launching his career in cardiology in Atlanta and ultimately at Emory.

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