Director's Welcome

On behalf of our faculty, fellows, staff and academic community I welcome you to the Division of Cardiovascular Health and Disease, University of Cincinnati Medical Center. Our collective and overarching mission, based on a time-honored tenet and inherent dedication to service and science, is to:

• Educate clinicians and scientists who will become future leaders
• Conduct cutting edge clinical research and establish a “learning hospital” capability
• Accelerate the translation of basic and clinical discoveries to patient care
• Support faculty growth, development and success
• Synergize with the UC Health System and other schools of the University to achieve patient-centered excellence
• Improve our local community through contributions to health care, education and the economy
• Provide the highest possible quality of care to each one of our patients while maintaining efficiency and being mindful of the patient experience.

Our expertise, dedication and compassion, coupled with focused ambition and knowledge of science, culture and community are used in daily activities to prevent heart, lung and vascular disease and to optimize the care of patients with cardiovascular and related diseases of the human circulatory system.

The continuum of scientific advances, new discoveries, inventions and innovation range from population-based preventive care and the creative use of social media to the most complex procedures that require great skill, the best and brightness physicians and cutting edge technology.

The Division of Cardiovascular Health and Disease is committed to transforming health care, teaching and research to benefit society. Our aspiration is driven by the belief that we can positively impact the health of our patients by:

• Making important advances in biomedical science and fundamental research
• Fostering a multidisciplinary and programmatic-based environment in the research laboratory and in the clinical arena that unites our efforts to prevent illness, treat disease, and care for our patients
• Translating discoveries and inventions into clinical practice
• Designing clinical interventions and measuring their effectiveness
• Creating innovative and widely implementable approaches to health and wellness
• Addressing health disparities and access to care in our community
• Sharing our vision and advances locally, regionally and nationally through wide-reaching programs and collaborations
• Training the scientists, clinical professionals, administrators, and community advocates who will lead this work in the future
• Investing in technologies, tools, infrastructure, and people- the foundations of success.

Service:
The primary operational themes for the Division of Cardiovascular Health and Disease are quality and efficiency. We are actively involved with community care plans in diseases and conditions, ranging from hypertension, obesity, diabetes, heart failure and coronary artery disease prevention and fully committed to improving health and reduce emergency room visits.

We have also developed programs of distinction in the hospital-based management of heart failure, structural heart disease, coronary heart disease, cardiovascular critical care, complex arrhythmias, adult congenital heart disease, peripheral vascular disease and pulmonary vascular disease.

Science:
Our faculty and staff are passionate about science- from the most fundamental levels of investigation to translating discoveries, new technologies and drug delivery systems to the bedside and the community through cohesive implementation strategies and thoughtful utilization of social media, tele-medicine and learning health care systems. We will soon establish the world's first Human Health and Disease Simulation Matrix.

This novel academic program will bring together the brightest and most imaginative minds on the University of Cincinnati campus- probing the causes, natural history and treatments of human disease through regenerative science, computation-based experimentation and modeling.

Embracing Our History:
Medical centers can be defined broadly as any concentration of health care providers; however, and by contrast, academic medical centers represent a thoughtfully designed, integrated spectrum of specialized health services, medical education and research. Divisions provide the organizational structure and focus to unleash the potential of an academic medical center in areas of expertise.

The University of Cincinnati College of Medicine (UCCOM) was established in 1819 as the Medical College of Ohio and became part of the University of Cincinnati in 1896. It is recognized as being the second-oldest public college of medicine in the United States.

The UCCOM, in its near two century history, has contributed substantially to the evolution of patient care and scientific advances in the United States and across the world.

A selected list of accomplishments includes:

• development of the first live, attenuated polio vaccine (Albert Sabin, MD)
• the first heart-lung machine (Samuel Kaplan, MD, Leland Clark, PhD, James Helmsworth)
• the first emergency medicine and physical medicine and rehabilitation residency programs
• the first medical laser laboratory (Leon Goldman, MD)
• the first test to screen newborns for phenylketonuria (Helen Berry, PhD); and 
• ground-breaking work in the pathophysiology, physical diagnosis and management of pulsus paradoxus, cardiac tamponade, constrictive pericarditis, pulmonary hypertension and high-output heart failure (Nobel Flower, MD).

These accomplishments and scientific breakthroughs are currently part of many national and international practices and standards of care, and have established foundations for training several generations of clinicians, scientists and educators. This is our signature-this is who we are-this is our motivation.

The Division of Cardiovascular Health and Disease will be on the fore-front of patient care, education and research - honoring our mission and commitment to service, science and unwavering excellence in everything that we do.

Sincerely,

Charles Hattemer, MD
Mabel Stonehill Endowed Chair
Professor of Medicine, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
Chief, Division of Cardiovascular Health and Disease