Why I Support the Work of the Medical College's
Cardiovascular Center
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Byron T. Foster
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By: Byron T. Foster, Chair, Cardiovascular Center Advisory Board
Oct. 2007 CVC UPBEAT - Although other diseases such as cancer are sometimes assumed to be more prevalent, the fact is that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in both men and women in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 61 million people in the United States have some form of heart disease (both of my own parents did), and nearly one million people die from the condition each year.
This alone makes research into finding ways to reduce the extent and severity of heart disease an imperative health care priority. And that is exactly what the Cardiovascular Center (CVC) at the Medical College of Wisconsin has been doing, with great success, for the past 15 years.
Today, the Medical College's CVC is one of the top 10 heart centers in the country based on funding received from the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Heart, Blood, and Lung Institute; in fact, since 1992, the CVC has received more than $100 million in NIH funding.
The role of our CVC Advisory Board is to raise public awareness of the Cardiovascular Center's work, and often this is coupled with activities to raise funds for the Center through events like the annual Cardiovascular Center Golf Challenge. Over time, the Advisory Board has helped raise seed money that's proved critical to successfully applying for a number of major research grants – particularly helpful since researchers sometimes need advance funding to set up an infrastructure that makes their project more credible to grant-makers.
Additionally, the Advisory Board has supported the expansion of cardiovascular research into translational activities that help deliver new cutting edge technologies more rapidly into patient care. While the science may appear to be pretty theoretical in some basic research stages, there is a parallel and continuing focus at the CVC on finding ways to apply that research as promptly as possible to the benefit of patients with cardiovascular problems. This means that dollars raised today to support cardiovascular research also go to help assure better clinical outcomes at related facilities such as Froedtert Hospital and Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.
Frankly, it is MCW's focus on research leading directly to better patient care that provides much of the stimulus to our CVC Advisory Board members to work intensively to help support the work of the Cardiovascular Center – and to then be able to also take great pride in its success.