Dr. Carmelo Massimiliano Rao is a cardiologist and surgeon at the Grande Ospedale Metropolitano. He was a PhD Student (XXIIIth Cycle) in Clinical Applications of Cardiovascular Imaging at the University of Messina. From 2007 to 2009, he worked as a research fellow at the Echocardiography Clinic attached to the S.O.D. of Electrophysiology and Cardiostimulation A.O.U. Careggi of Florence. Since 2009, he has been the first-level medical director at the U.O. of Rehabilitation Cardiology of the “Bianchi-Melecrino-Morelli” hospital in Reggio Calabria. He also collaborated with the hospital's echocardiography service at Meyer Pediatric Hospital in Florence, acquiring specific skills in the field of congenital heart disease, and with the hospital's cardiac surgery centre in San Donato Milanese where he carried out research applied to the study of myocardial deformation in patients undergoing ventricular plastic surgery.