Association of University Cardiologists
Home
Constitution and
Bylaws
Upcoming
Meetings
Officers
Membership
Roster
Deceased
Members
Membership Nomination
Abstract Forms
How to Contact Us
Thomas W. Smith, M.D.
1936 - 1997
Thomas Smith
was born in Akron, Ohio. He entered Harvard University in 1954, thus beginning an intense, 43-year relationship with this institution. After graduating from Harvard College in 1958 with an AB degree, cum laude, in chemistry, he served for 3 years as a line officer in the US Navy. He then entered Harvard Medical School, from which he graduated in 1965, magna cum laude. Dr Smith spent 9 years at the Massachusetts General Hospital, serving successively as an intern and resident in medicine and as a cardiology Fellow; he then joined the Harvard faculty and was promoted to Professor of Medicine in 1979. In 1974, he became Chief of the Cardiovascular Division at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, and in 1982 he received an additional appointment as Professor of Medicine, Harvard–Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences and Technology.
For 22 years, Dr Smith provided exemplary leadership to the Cardiovascular Division of the Department of Medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, where he emphasized all three limbs of the academic tripod. He was a devoted mentor and friend of his faculty and trainees and put his personal stamp of excellence on all of the division's activities. He was a respected, consummate clinician who set the highest standards for clinical care. In addition to his own research, he encouraged the research of others in the division—both faculty and trainees—so that under his leadership the Cardiovascular Division now has respected research programs in almost every area of cardiovascular science, including vascular biology, hemodynamics, cardiac genetics, and cellular signaling. Clinical Research is active in congestive heart failure, myocardial infarction, unstable angina, cardiac transplantation, and electrophysiology. Under the leadership of Dr Smith, the faculty of the Cardiovascular Division grew from 7 in 1976 to 70 in 1997, with 102 research and clinical fellows in cardiology. The Cardiovascular Division's clinical strengths are recognized regionally and nationally, and for the past decade its training programs in academic and clinical cardiology have been deemed to be among the strongest worldwide, attracting the most outstanding research and clinical fellows. This highly esteemed training program and the many leaders in academic cardiology which it has spawned will be one of Dr Smith's most enduring legacies.
Dr Smith played vital roles at the Harvard Medical School, where he served as Chair of the Curriculum Committee and the Council of Academic Societies. He was active in the American Heart Association and chaired both its Scientific Publications and Research Evaluation Committees. He received the AHA's most prestigious awards: the Distinguished Achievement Award and the James B. Herrick Award. He served as President of the Association of University Cardiologists and was for many years a constructive force in the councils of the National Institutes of Health.