Prof. Braunwald Receives Heart Association Award

Dr. Eugene Braunwald, Hersey Professor of Theory and Practice of Physics, yesterday received the American Heart Association's 1972 Research Achievement Award at its 45th annual convention in Dallas, Texas.

The award honored Braunwald as "an investigator, teacher and author whose contribution to cardiovascular physiology and clinical cardiology has been extraordinary."

Braunwald's work has resulted in improved diagnostic techniques for coronary patients. He has also studied the effects on the heart produced by different drugs and levels of stress.

Braunwald expanded the use of digitalis by showing that the drug could help patients with weak but functioning hearts. Prior to his study, doctors had administered it only during heart failure.

Current Work

Braunwald is currently experimenting with the use of drugs such as hyaluronidase to control heart damage after a coronary attack.

At the University of California Medical School at La Jolla in 1968, Braunwald introduced a new program under which professors from liberal arts fields lectured to medical students. This departure from an all-medicine curriculum was sub-sequently adopted by medical schools throughout the country.

Braunwald has served on the editorial boards of many medical publications, including the Annals of Internal Medicine and the American Journal of Cardiology. His long list of achievements and awards includes a 1967 Superior Service Award presented him by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

Braunwald received his Doctor of Medicine from New York University in 1952, and did his internship at New York's Mt. Sinai hospital.

At the age of 31, in 1955, he became the National Heart Institute's youngest Chief of Cardiology, and 11 years later became its Clinical Director.

Before coming to Harvard as Harvard Professor in 1972. Braunwald served as chairman of the department of Medicine at the University of California at La Jolla.

He was also named last spring to the post of chairman of medicine at the Peter Bent Brigham hospital