Skip to contents
In This Issue:
Department of Medicine and Cardiology alumni flocked to BWH last month for the first-ever symposium to celebrate the Eugene Braunwald Endowment for the Advancement of Cardiovascular Discovery and Care.
With more than a dozen BWH cardiologists, including Braunwald, presenting, nearly 300 physicians packed Bornstein Amphitheater for the Oct. 4 symposium, which also served as a DOM alumni event for house staff and fellows. Speakers reflected on the many advances in cardiovascular medicine over the past 60 years that have dramatically affected the course and outcome of cardiovascular disease.
“This has been a thrilling morning for me,” said Braunwald, who is chairman of BWH’s Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) Study Group and who served as the chairman of the Department of Medicine at BWH from 1972 to 1996. “My sincere thanks to all our speakers and all of you who joined us today, and for supporting this endowment.”
Joseph Loscalzo, MD, PhD, chairman of the Department of Medicine, welcomed the speakers and invited guests who trained at BWH during the years that Braunwald led the Department of Medicine. “I view the endowment and this symposium as surrogate endpoints for our real primary goal here today: to honor our role model, teacher, colleague and friend, Eugene Braunwald, for all that he has done and continues to do for us as his professional offspring and for the field of medicine,” he said.
Braunwald spoke about how cardiology has changed over the last 60 years through research, beginning with his medical school mentor, Ludwig Eichna, MD, and touching on valvular heart disease, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, heart failure, lipid lowering and myocardial ischemia and infarction.
“Our medical school experiences with inspiring mentors are of immense importance,” he said. “My experience with Dr. Eichna at New York University changed my life.”
Braunwald offered a few suggestions or “take home messages” about having a successful career in research. Research, he said, is not a one-person show, and it requires input from trainees, colleagues and mentors. “View research as an end in itself, not a means to an end,” he said. “You need to feel deeply the thrill of the chase and that very rare joy of discovery.”