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History of Cardiology at Mount Sinai
From its humble origins in 1852 as the Jews Hospital in lower Manhattan, The Mount Sinai Hospital was already a leader in patient care by the time it moved to its present Upper East Side location on Fifth Avenue adjacent to Central Park in 1904. A unique paring of an old and venerable hospital with one of the nation's youngest medical schools, Mount Sinai School of Medicine founded in 1963, The Mount Sinai Medical Center is today one of the largest and most famous in the world. Its cardiology program is one of the oldest and most distinguished in the country. Beginning in 1909, under the leadership of Dr. Alfred E. Cohn and then Dr. Bernard S. Oppenheimer, the Electrocardiography Laboratory at The Mount Sinai Hospital was a pioneering group in the field of Cardiology in this country. In 1934 Dr. Arthur M. Master was named head of the Cardiac Laboratory and the cardiac clinics. Dr. Charles Friedberg succeeded Dr. Master in 1957 and authored one of the first standard textbooks of cardiology, securing its place in the curricula of medical schools around the nation. Dr. Arnold Katz assumed the mantle of leadership of the Division of Cardiology in 1968 and introduced a scientific approach to the study of hemodynamics.
In 1974, Dr. Richard Gorlin, an internationally renowned cardiologist,
became Chairman of the Samuel Bronfman Department of Medicine, and appointed
Dr Michael V. Herman as Chief of Cardiology, the first to develop a full-time
cardiology faculty at the institution. In 1983, Dr. Valentin Fuster was recruited
from the Mayo Clinic to serve as the Chief of Cardiology and the Dr. Arthur
M. and Hilda A. Master Professor of Medicine. Dr. Fuster assembled a team of
investigators and created an internationally renowned research program in thrombosis.
In addition to establishing the first integrated experimental laboratories
for cardiovascular research at Mount Sinai, Dr. Fuster reorganized the clinical
practices of the division and made the cardiology fellowship training program
among the most sought-after in the nation. In 1990, the Molecular and Cellular
Cardiology Laboratories were established, dedicated to investigating cardiovascular
diseases through the techniques of molecular and cellular biology. Dr. Fuster
returned to Mount Sinai in 1994 as Director of the newly created Cardiovascular
Institute. In 1996 the Robert and Harriet Heilbrunn Professorship was endowed
and established for the Institute's Director of Clinical Cardiology Services,
and Dr. Jonathan L. Halperin was installed as its first occupant. In 1997,
Dr. Fuster was named the Richard Gorlin, M.D. / Heart Research Foundation Professor
of Cardiology, a newly endowed chair designated for the Director of the Institute.
On November 4, 1997, the Cardiovascular Institute itself was endowed by and
named for Zena and Michael A. Wiener, establishing a firm base for its future
development.
Selected Scientific Achievements of the Cardiovascular
Institute
| Year |
Event |
|---|
| 1936 |
Around the time cardiology emerged as a medical subspecialty, Dr. Arthur
Master, Mount Sinai's first Chief of Cardiology, develops the first exercise
stress test, the "Master two-step test." |
| 1941 |
Two leading cardiologists of the day, Drs. Ephraim Donoso and Simon
Dack, help to establish the American College of Cardiology, today one of
the largest and most respected professional organizations of physicians. |
| 1949 |
Dr. Charles Friedberg, successor to Dr. Master, pioneers the use of
direct current cardioversion for treatment of cardiac arrhythmias, and
authors one of the first standard textbooks of cardiology, Diseases
of the Heart. |
| 1958 |
Dr. Dack becomes the first editor-in-chief of the American Journal
of Cardiology and develops it over a period of twenty-five years
into one of the world's most prestigious medical journals. In 1988, Dr.
Dack repeats the achievement as the founding editor-in-chief of the Journal
of the American College of Cardiology. |
| 1974 |
Dr. Richard Gorlin, who opened the era of surgical treatment of rheumatic
heart disease by developing a formula to measure how severely patients'
heart valves were blocked while working in Boston, is appointed Chairman
of Mount Sinai's Samuel Bronfman Department of Medicine. |
| 1976 |
Dr. Louis E. Teichholz, who developed the formula still used to measure
the pumping function of the left ventricle noninvasively, establishes the
first echocardiography laboratory at Mount Sinai. |
| 1978 |
Dr. J. Anthony Gomes is the first investigator to measure the effects
of digitalis on the His-Purkinje electrical conducting system of the heart. |
| 1981 |
Dr. K. Peter Rentrop opens the era of interventional angiography in
the United States with intracoronary thrombolysis, using a clot-dissolving
drug to open the coronary arteries of patients during a heart attack. |
| 1982 |
Drs. James H. Chesebro and Valentin Fuster, then at the Mayo Clinic,
follow five years of experimental studies with a clinical trial proving
the value of aspirin to prevent coronary bypass grafts from closing. Rapidly
adopted by cardiologists and surgeons the world over, the approach greatly
improves the prognosis for patients undergoing this commonly performed
operation. |
| 1983 |
Drs. Juan Jose Badimon and Lina Badimon, working in Dr. Fuster's laboratory,
carry out a series of painstaking experiments demonstrating the relationship
between blood clots in arteries and the disturbances of blood flow leading
to acute coronary syndromes such as unstable angina pectoris, myocardial
infarction and sudden death. |
| 1984 |
Dr. Martin E. Goldman is the first to utilize intra-operative transesophageal
color-flow Doppler echocardiography to guide the hand of the cardiac surgeon
in the operating room, allowing moment-to-moment decisions during heart
valve repair and replacement. |
| 1985 |
Dr. John A. Ambrose, then Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories,
discovers the relationship between complex angiographic lesion morphology
and acute coronary events, dramatically altering the way patients are selected
for angioplasty and bypass surgery. |
| 1987 |
Dr. Gomes develops a noninvasive index of the risk of sudden death among
heart attack survivors, based upon a combination of signal averaged electrocardiography,
Holter monitoring and left ventricular function. |
| 1990 |
Dr. Jonathan L. Halperin directs a multicenter team of cardiologists
in the largest clinical trial of antithrombotic therapy for prevention
of stroke in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation, a common cardiac
rhythm disturbance. |
| 1991 |
Dr. Mark B. Taubman and colleagues identify the proteins responsible
for thrombosis and inflammation in the blood vessel wall that contribute
to the problem of restenosis following coronary angioplasty |
| 1992-1995 |
Receiving the Andreas Gruntzig Scientific Award of the European Society
of Cardiology, the Distinguished Scientist Award of the American College
of Cardiology, and Lewis A. Connor Memorial Award of the American Heart
Association, Dr. Fuster becomes the first individual to earn cardiology's "triple
crown" from the world's three major cardiological organizations. |
| 1993 |
Dr. Jonathan I. Halperin led a major study that demonstrated the safety and efficacy of a new generation of anticoagulants in preventing stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation. The new treatment, ximelagatran (ExantaR), is far less toxic than the traditional treatment, warfarin (CoumadinR), involves no interactions with other substances in the body, and obviates the need for frequent blood test monitoring and dosage adjustments. |
| 1997 |
Leading an international collaboration of investigators, Dr. Fuster
reports the results of the largest clinical trial of heart attack survivors
beyond hospital discharge, defining the best approach to preventing a second
heart attack, stroke or death using clot-preventing medications. |
| 1997 |
Dr. Fuster is elected the next President of the American Heart Association. |
| 1997 |
Endowment and naming of the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular
Institute. |
| 2000 |
Drs. Zahi A. Fayad, Valentin Fuster and colleagues report the results
of a pilot study for the black-blood MRI, a non-invasive imaging technique
that causes blood to appear dark while vessel walls appear bright, allowing
cardiologists to identify thickening of the artery wall, an indication
of otherwise undetectable vulnerable plaque. While still experimental,
this new tool already has been heralded as a breakthrough with the potential
to pinpoint silent killers. |
| 2002 |
The work of a number of Mount Sinai investigators, including Drs. Michael
Poon, Juan J. Badimon and Valentin Fuster, results in the development of
a Rapamycin-coated stent, a breakthrough in the prevention of restenosis
following cardiac catheterization. |
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