2006 David E. Rogers Award

Eugene Braunwald, M.D.
Harvard Medical School
Brigham and Women's Hospital

The David E. Rogers Award is sponsored by the AAMC and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The award honors David E. Rogers, M.D., a former president of the foundation and an exemplar of academic medicine's commitment to meeting the health care needs of our nation. The award recognizes a medical school faculty member who has made major contributions to improving the health and health care of the American people.

With heart disease still one of the nation's top health care threats, Eugene Braunwald, M.D., as both researcher and educator, has truly improved the health and health care of the American people. According to Joseph B. Martin, M.D., dean of the faculty of medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS), Dr. Braunwald's "bench to bedside approach to the limitations of myocardial infarct size is perhaps the greatest single example of an individual whose scientific research has led to dramatic translational benefits to improve patient care." Because of Dr. Braunwald, the prognosis and quality of life for those suffering a heart attack are infinitely brighter, and the world of biomedical medical research and education is substantially richer.

Born in Vienna, Austria, Dr. Eugene Braunwald is Distinguished Hersey Professor of Theory and Practice of Medicine at HMS and chairman of the Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction Study Group at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is also a founding trustee of Partners HealthCare System, and was its first vice president for academic programs as well as chief academic officer.

In the words of his colleagues, Dr. Braunwald is a "true Athenian, a master of all trades with a legendary and prodigious capacity for work, who is blessed with an endowment of unusual organizational skills, ranging from the development of a distinguished academic department to the design of a superb clinical trial." His landmark discovery that myocardial infarct size can be limited by favorably altering the balance between oxygen supply and demand resulted in the more commonplace use of beta blockers during acute myocardial infarction as well as a variety of reperfusion strategies. Dr. Braunwald is also internationally recognized for his work designing and conducting the Cholesterol and Recurrent Events trial which showed that lowering serum cholesterol of heart attack survivors with even average cholesterol levels could reduce death or recurrence.

Dr. Braunwald began his career at the National Institutes of Health as a clinical associate at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). He quickly rose to the top of NHLBI leadership, being appointed the first chief of the cardiology branch, and later, clinical director. In 1968, Dr. Braunwald left NHLBI to join the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, becoming professor and founding chairman of its department of medicine. While at UCSD, Dr. Braunwald presided over major curriculum change, and was the first to remove explicitly the pre-existing boundaries between preclinical and clinical education. Additionally, he continued his work in public service by serving on numerous federal government advisory commissions and task forces, including presidential advisory panels on biological and medical sciences, and heart disease.

Dr. Braunwald graduated magna cum laude with an undergraduate degree from New York University, where he also earned his M.D. in 1952. He completed his internship in cardiology at Mount Sinai Hospital, and his residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is the recipient of 13 honorary doctorates from institutions around the world.

With more than 1,100 articles to his credit, as well as the landmark textbook Braunwald's Heart Disease, Dr. Braunwald, says HMS Dean Martin, "is one of the most prominently cited biomedical researchers, if not the most cited, in the world." He is also a skilled editor, having served in that capacity for 11 editions of Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine.

Among Dr. Braunwald's numerous awards and honors are the Distinguished Scientist Award from the American College of Cardiology, the Williams Award of the Association of Professors of Medicine, and the Kober Medal of the Association of American Physicians. In recognition of his outstanding teaching abilities, the American Heart Association created the Eugene Braunwald Academic Mentorship Award (and designated Braunwald its first recipient) and HMS permanently endowed a Eugene Braunwald Professorship in Medicine.

Nominate a deserving individual for the David E. Rogers Award, and view a list of previous award recipients.