University of Chicago's David Faxon to become president of American Heart Association July 1

June 22, 2001

David Parker Faxon, MD, section chief of cardiology and a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, will begin his one-year term as president of the American Heart Association, on July 1, 2001. With more than four million volunteers and a budget of nearly half a billion dollars, the Heart Association is the largest nonprofit voluntary health organization targeting cardiovascular diseases, such as heart disease and stroke -- two of the leading killers in the United States.

A pioneer in the development of non-surgical techniques, such as angioplasty for restoring blood flow through clogged coronary arteries, Faxon was elected last June and confirmed at the annual Delegate Assembly in Dallas, June 22 and 23, 2001.

"It is a considerable honor to represent such a distinguished organization and to have this chance to play a leading role in the Association's campaign to reduce death and risk of heart disease and stroke by 25% by the year 2010," said Faxon. "The Heart Association has already made a huge difference through public education about risk factors, prevention, early detection, and the need for rapid response to a heart attack or stroke -- but we still have a long way to go."

Faxon, 56, is a leader in the development of interventional cardiology. He is best known for his basic and clinical research on new techniques for opening the plaque-filled vessels that deliver blood to the heart muscle and on methods to prevent restenosis, the tendency for those vessels to narrow again after treatment.

He came to the University of Chicago last summer from the University of Southern California, where he was a professor of medicine and chief of the division of cardiology at the Los Angeles County and USC Medical Center and University Hospital.

A native of Manchester, New Hampshire, Faxon earned his BA from Hamilton College, in Clinton, NY, in 1967, and graduated from the Boston University Medical School in 1971. He did his residency at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, followed by a fellowship in cardiology at Boston University Hospital. He then taught at Boston University from 1976 to 1993, rising quickly from instructor to professor of medicine, director of interventional cardiology and acting chief of cardiology. After 17 years of teaching in Boston, he moved to USC in 1993 as professor of medicine and chief of cardiology.

The author or co-author of nearly 150 articles in peer-reviewed journals, editor of three books, and author of 20 book chapters, Faxon serves on the editorial boards of several journals, including Circulation, the American Journal of Cardiology, and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. He has served as an investigator and on the data and safety monitoring boards for many nationwide clinical trials of new cardiovascular therapies, including the BARI, EPIC, IMPACT, and STARS trials. He is routinely included on lists of the best cardiologists in the United States.

Faxon has also been a leader at the local and national level for several heart-health organizations. He has served as president of the Massachusetts and Los Angeles affiliates of the American Heart Association. He is a member of the AHA's national board of directors and chairman of the AHA's scientific publishing committee.