Congratulations to the 2008 award recipients, Charles L. Byrd, MD; Stephen C. Hammill, MD, FHRS; Andre Kléber, MD; Edward P. Walsh, MD; and Betsy Bougess Bogdansky.
In addition, the Heart Rhythm 2008 Founder's Lecture recipient is A. John Camm, MD, FHRS (who will present on Thursday, May 15 during the AF Summit Update) and the Heart Rhythm 2008 Douglas A Zipes Lecture recipient is Michael Rosen, MD, FHRS (who will speak on Thursday, May 15).
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Pioneer in Cardiac Pacing and Electrophysiology  |
| Charles L. Byrd, MD, Pioneer in Cardiac Pacing and Electrophysiology award recipient. |
Charles L. Byrd, MD, is worthy to receive the Heart Rhythm Society's Pioneer in Cardiac Pacing and Electrophysiology award for 2008. He is currently Clinical Professor of Surgery at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Although he worked first in Miami, he has continued his creative and ground-breaking work at the Broward General Medical Center in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, since 1991.
Byrd has devoted his life to implantable pacemaker and defibrillator therapy. Although many people are responsible for the development of techniques to provide normal atrio-ventricular sequence, rate response and defibrillator therapy, Byrd has championed the cause of prevention and treatment of device-related complications. While the organization was prominently originated by cardiologists and surgeons, Byrd has added to the proud surgical tradition, adding uniquely surgical approaches in a field now dominated by his non-surgical colleagues. Most notably, Byrd has pioneered transvenous and non-transvenous techniques for lead extraction and treatments for infected and noninfected complications related to devices and leads. At first there were no locking stylets and no specialized sheaths. Subsequently, he was strategically involved in the development of polypropylene sheaths, femoral extraction sheaths and snares, Excimer laser extraction tools, Electrosurgical Dissection Sheath extraction tools and the recently introduced rotational powered sheaths (Evolution™). His surgical experience has also allowed him to devise and perfect transatrial extraction techniques, for use when transvenous techniques are not possible or are not appropriate.
In addition to the technical aspects of lead removal, Byrd has pioneered understanding in the mechanisms of lead dysfunction, vascular occlusion and device infections. He has authored the pioneering publications describing the treatment of device and lead complications, and co-chaired and authored the publication for standards for lead extractions. More importantly, he has instructed the entire cardiovascular and surgical EP international community in appropriate approach to device and lead complications.
Finally, he is much more than a theoretical leader. Byrd has been the world’s most prolific clinician in this field, producing his instruction and insights from clinical experience, yielding the most practical, safe and relevant guidance. He solved problems that most physicians hadn’t identified and provided key insights and answers to the multiple lead reliability issues that have developed from the polyurethane insulation failures to J-retention wire perforations. He is the chief of all the leaders in this field and richly deserves the Heart Rhythm Society Pioneer in Cardiac Pacing and Electrophysiology award.
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Distinguished Service Award
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| Stephen C. Hammill, MD, FHRS, Distinguished Service Award recipient |
Stephen C. Hammill, MD, FHRS, is the 2008 recipient of the Distinguished Service Award of the Heart Rhythm Society for volunteer activities on behalf of the organization and its members. We particularly recognize him for service in three areas of what can only be called extended hard labor above and beyond the more visible and immediately appreciated activities directly related to his four years leading up to and including when he was president of the Society.
Hammill became Chair of the Health Policy Committee in 1995 when it became apparent that there was no uniform system for coding electrophysiology procedures, in the country, and sometimes not even within the same hospital. With an expert coding group, he developed The Coding Guide for Heart Rhythm Procedures and Services. It is THE Rosetta Stone for coding of complex EP procedures. It allows us to speak with one voice and with uniform standards in a challenging payment environment.
The mid-1990s were a time when the Heart Rhythm Society was little known in Washington. With Hammill’s leadership, the D.C. office was established and expanded, and the Society’s voice was heard at the CMS, FDA and at the AMA-RUC. The Society is now routinely asked for its opinion on numerous issues and is a respected participant in Washington.
Hammill has served as Chair of the National Working Group to develop the ICD Registry since its inception. It is in this capacity that we have seen the master at work. An alphabet soup of stakeholders, including four professional societies (HRS, HFSA, ACC and AHA), four device companies, FDA, CMS, AHRQ, American Hospital Association and at-large members convened under his leadership. Recommendations were developed in two months and incorporated into the National Coverage Decision published in January 2005. The ICD Registry is used in every hospital in the US where ICDs are implanted and enrolls over 10,000 patients per month. Hammill is the champion of the ICD Registry Longitudinal Study, which uses its rich data for research and for quality improvement. Version 2.0 nears completion as a similar collaborative effort adding information about leads and pediatric patients.
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Distinguished Scientist Award
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| Andre Kléber, Distinguished Scientist Award recipient |
Andre Kléber, MD received his medical and cardiology training at the University of Bern and commenced his scientific career under Silvio Weidmann’s tutelage in 1970. Following a fellowship at the University of Amsterdam with Dirk Durrer, he returned to Bern as a faculty member in the Department of Physiology in 1980 and became Professor in 1990.
During his subsequent career, Kléber has led us in discovery of the cellular and molecular determinants of cardiac conduction and arrhythmias. His research has centered on fundamental mechanisms underlying abnormal conduction and arrhythmogenesis in ischemic and otherwise-diseased hearts. He has originated immensely powerful experimental systems that have elucidated the contributions of the electrical, mechanical, structural and metabolic components that interact to cause arrhythmias.
One such model was the arterially-perfused papillary muscle that Kléber and colleagues used to characterize the roles of passive electrical properties, intracellular pH and ATP and transmembrane ion fluxes as determinants of impulse propagation and arrhythmogenesis in acute ischemia. This body of work was followed by development of another innovative system for patterning the growth of cultured rat ventricular myocytes. This was used to elucidate the roles of tissue geometry and patterns of intercellular connections as determinants of propagation and arrhythmogenesis.
Kléber next combined patterned cell growth approaches with genetically engineered mouse models, work which has maintained him at the forefront in defining the specific roles of individual molecules in the complex process of impulse propagation. Kléber has not only has received international acclaim as a seminal contributor to our understanding of cardiac rhythm and arrhythmias, but he is recognized as an outstanding mentor, teacher and citizen. For all these reasons, he is eminently deserving of the Distinguished Scientist Award.
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Distinguished Teacher Award
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| Edward P. Walsh, MD, Distinguished Teacher Award recipient |
Edward P. Walsh, MD, is the recipient of this year’s Distinguished Teacher Award. Walsh is Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, Senior Associate in Cardiology and Chief of the Electrophysiology Division in the Department of Pediatric Cardiology at the Children’s Hospital Boston.
After completing his training in Pediatric Cardiology at the Children’s Hospital in 1984, Walsh served a one-year fellowship in Adult Electrophysiology at Massachusetts General Hospital. He then returned to the Children’s Hospital to establish an arrhythmia service as part of the Department of Cardiology, a relatively novel idea in pediatric cardiology in 1985. This rapidly developed into a busy and academically productive service, a premier program in pediatric cardiac electrophysiology. Walsh has directed the Arrhythmia Service ever since. He and his team have been at the forefront of developments in the field, particularly in radiofrequency ablation, three-dimensional mapping, and ablation in congenital heart disease. He is the lead editor of one of the standard texts in the field of pediatric electrophysiology, “Cardiac Arrhythmias in Children and Young Adults With Congenital Heart Disease.”
Walsh is well described by the term “Distinguished Teacher.” All those who have attended his numerous contributions at national and international cardiology meetings, and especially the Annual Scientific Sessions of Heart Rhythm Society over the years, can testify to his extraordinary gifts in teaching. As a leader in the Pediatric Cardiology Fellowship Training Program at Children’s Hospital Boston, Walsh has had a major impact on the field through his training and mentorship of pediatric fellows in Boston. Amazingly, 15% of all pediatric electrophysiologists practicing in North America have been trained or mentored by Walsh, with many more working in hospitals and EP labs around the world. Clearly, he has had an immense impact on the electrophysiology community, a legacy of insight and philosophy that will continue long into the future.
Although Walsh was born and raised in Philadelphia, he is now and will remain a die-hard Red Sox fan. He is also avid fisherman and karate enthusiast. He lives in Newton, Massachusetts, with his wife, Jane, a pediatric nurse practitioner, and their four children, Emily, Patrick, Peter and Molly.
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25 Years of Service  |
| Betsy Bougess Bogdansky, 25 Years of Service Award recipient |
Betsy Bougess Bogdansky always wanted to work in the education field. After graduating college, her first job was as an elementary school teacher in the Boston area (a die-hard Bostonian!) where she was born and raised. She moved to New York and received her Masters degree in education from Columbia University while working at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. When relocating back to Boston she began working at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in the Cardiac Unit, where she was the Fellowship Program Coordinator.
In 1983, Bogdansky joined Carol McGlinchey, Executive Director of NASPE, and doubled the staff of the Society. Her condition of employment hinged on the fact that she was not allowed to work from 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., as she and McGlinchey shared a desk outside J. Warren Harthorne’s office in the Ambulatory Care Center at MGH.
As the second employee of the fledgling Society, Bogdansky was called upon to do anything and everything, from computer application projects, mailings, assisting with the first stand-alone scientific sessions, to being McGlinchey’s helping hand. As her family grew and children entered school, her hours of employment increased as did her responsibilities.
Bogdansky has been involved with most departments of the Society. She served as the first Computer Manager, Abstract Manager, Fellowship Training Program liaison, advisor in rewriting the by-laws, part-time Human Resources specialist, Registration Manager of the Annual Scientific Sessions, Managing Editor of NASPENews, creator of the first weekly e-mail communication to the membership, Director of NASPExAM, Director of Membership, supervisor of the initial Society website development and the Rhythms in Time Project Manager. Her most recent responsibility as the Director of Donor Relations for the Heart Rhythm Foundation affords her the opportunity to engage in conversation with members, donors and patients.
Bogdansky has also become a valued resource in the history of the Society and the cardiac arrhythmia field, as she was most recently interviewed by PBS for the series “The Mysterious Human Heart” documentary. Bogdansky worked alongside the Society’s founders and many members in multiple capacities and has had the opportunity to represent the Society while serving as its ambassador. She has also had the opportunity to make friends from around the world, travel and work with fellow employees who are now life-long friends. Bogdansky’s job has been exciting, challenging and always thought-provoking and educational, as the Society has changed and advanced so much in the course of 25 years. She is grateful to work in this environment allowing her the flexibility to concentrate on her family, Alan, her husband of 37 years, and her children, Mark and Heidi, Erica and Reuben and Judd and Elana.
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